Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret? If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%. There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups.

In the first 24 hours of the new year, 264 separate incidents of gun violence happened across the United States, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive and Vox. At least 64 people were killed, and another 146 were injured.

A new Nevada law requiring background checks for private party gun sales was deemed unenforceable Wednesday, days before it was to take effect because the FBI refuses to conduct them and the state lacks authority to do so. The opinion issued by the office of Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt left gun enthusiasts elated and proponents of background checks reeling from the blow of another setback — the second since 2013 when a bill requiring universal screenings was passed by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Brian Sandoval.

On his recent trip to New York, Todd Underwood did not pack a gun. This was unusual, the first time in five years that he went anywhere, even to church, without one. Underwood, who is 37 years old and from Kansas City, won’t say how many guns he owns, but “a fucking arsenal” is a fair description. Underwood wasn’t always a gun guy, he told me, though his father, a factory worker, kept a revolver or two under the bed. His interest really took hold in February 2014, when he was laid up, recovering from quadruple-­bypass surgery, with an infant daughter at home.

Some left-wingers in America are learning to love firearms following the election of Donald Trump and a few are even becoming survivalists.

Three Republican lawmakers in Washington have proposed a bill that would allow fans to bring firearms into sports stadiums, including Seattle’s privately owned and operated CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field. House Bill 1015, sponsored by representatives Matt Shea, David Taylor and Bob McCaslin, would prevent stadiums from banning fans who carry a licensed concealed weapon into their facilities.

They have put it off all spring and summer, but now it’s autumn and they’re out of excuses, so they set out on what should be the most ordinary of chores: to dismantle a trampoline in one back yard and rebuild it in another. “I love you,” the 4-year-old boy says as they drive through their neighborhood, just after his mother, who awoke with another migraine, told him to “shut up and sit on your butt or else.” “I love you,” he says again, a few seconds later, for what seems like the 10th time today, and now no one says anything. His grandmother stares ahead, dreading where they’re going.

A woman was accidentally shot in the head on Saturday outside a gun show in Raleigh, according to authorities. Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said three people were inside a pickup truck around 10:15 a.m. outside the Dixie Gun and Knife Show at the N.C. State Fairgrounds when the shooting happened. The driver, identified as 30-year-old William Daniel Glosson, of Cameron, had just bought two guns from the show.

On October 30, an armed man and two others attempted to rob a Pizza Hut restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the armed robbers was shot and killed by a Pizza Hut employee. Now, the parents of the armed robber are speaking out, questioning why the Pizza Hut employee shot their son in the head in self defense with a handgun the employee legally owned.

The history of the Thompson submachine gun.

A 4-year-old boy died of a gunshot wound in his home on Milwaukee's north side Friday, police said. The shooting was reported shortly before 6 p.m. in the 2100 block of N. 15th St., according to a news release from the Milwaukee Police Department. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office.

Officer Osvaldo Villarreal claims an unarmed suspect named Benny Herrera had a weapon before Villarreal shot and killed Herrera. Villarreal also claims that Herrera “charged” him — or, at least, that Herrera “closed the distance . . . very quickly” — after the officer ordered the suspect to remove his hand from his pocket. Video of the incident disagrees. That video, according to a federal appeals court, “shows that the command and the shots were almost simultaneous, separated by less than a second.”

Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible. Every time a tragic event happens, we start to panic. Our first reaction is to call for more laws; then after a few months, you hear; why am I being harassed by police? “Congress continues to criminalize at an average rate of one new crime for every week of every year” (1). How many laws until we have no freedoms whatsoever? Below I am going to show you why guns are not as scary as people think. Once you start to believe, we can brainstorm and find a solution that appeases both sides. Why continue to lobby ourselves into bankruptcy?

In Miami-Dade County, cities can't spend money on public transportation, affordable housing, or sea-level-rise preparedness without residents stomping their feet and flooding commission meetings to protest. But ask for six figures' worth of controversial, military-grade police equipment, and South Florida cities will pretty much just hand you a blank check. After City of Miami Police used the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando to rush-order $300,000 worth of military-grade armor last month, that same police department now says it needs to spend $101,332.64 on 148 AR-15-style Bushmaster rifles, 148 rifle scopes, and other supplies.

For every 10.5 guns collected under Connecticut’s policy, one person was stopped from taking his or her own life, researchers estimate.

Despite the fact that the United States has a very, very high rate of gun deaths compared to other developed countries, we actually know very little about the public-health threat posed by firearms. That's because Congress, working closely with the NRA, passed legislation in the 1990s barring the Centers for Disease control from spending money on any research that could be seen as pro-gun-control, and the CDC has interpreted this ban in a broad manner — the NRA's maneuvering has effectively choked off decades of would-be new research on an area of huge public importance.

There's no telling how many guns we have in America—and when one gets used in a crime, no way for the cops to connect it to its owner. The only place the police can turn for help is a Kafkaesque agency in West Virginia, where, thanks to the gun lobby, computers are illegal and detective work is absurdly antiquated. On purpose. Thing is, the geniuses who work there are quietly inventing ways to do the impossible.

Despite the effusive praise from gun advocates, and respectful treatment by the mainstream media, The War on Guns is riddled with errors and falsehoods that undermine most, if not all, of its major claims.

A low point, a bottle, a cat, a gun. By Kenneth R. Rosen. (March, 2016)

The leader of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has spoken out in favor of people arming themselves with guns and self-defense devices following a series of violent attacks last month. The anti-immigrant AfD has won growing popular support in Germany due in part to Europe's migrant crisis, which has seen more than 1 million refugees arrive over the past year, and it now has seats in eight of Germany's 16 state assemblies. After two Islamist attacks and a shooting rampage by a mentally unstable teenager last month, ...