3 military enthusiasts charged with taking WWII bullets from Pacific

Friday 23rd October, 06:30 AM JST

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Klein2 at 07:10 AM JST - 23rd October

Generally speaking, Japanese people treat the Truk wrecks as sites of entombment and memorials. At least older ones do. There are many people who would call this a desecration. I know a 70 year old guy who would seriously put these guys away.
goldsounds at 07:35 AM JST - 23rd October

Completely ridiculous. Anti-gun laws are silly enough, but these guys are clearly not interested in using old bullets for their gang activities.

Japanese people treat the Truk wrecks as sites of entombment and memorials

I guarantee that 99% of Japanese under 50 have no idea what the Truk islands are or care much about what's sunken there.
hellhound at 07:50 AM JST - 23rd October

That is not a crime, they found it rite?
Beelzebub at 07:56 AM JST - 23rd October

The load in a cartridge that old is almost certainly not going to fire.
Klein2 at 08:02 AM JST - 23rd October

goldsounds

I guarantee that there are a lot of Japanese older than 50.
Klein2 at 08:03 AM JST - 23rd October

Also, I guarantee that these guys knew about Truk and what happened there.
inakaRob at 08:23 AM JST - 23rd October

I get what all of you are saying. But a law is a law. And a bullet is a bullet. They might not fire, but they also find old bombs from WW2 still buried, and they take those seriously as well.
Yelnats at 12:45 PM JST - 23rd October

Old loaded cartridges are unstable. Could have taken the plane down.
nandakandamanda at 12:53 PM JST - 23rd October

Yelnats, that is not what they are charged with.

Because of certain uncontrollable segments of Japanese society, the laws have to be very tight and very strictly enforced. No exceptions. Possession of gunpowder in any form without permission carries heavy penalties. The fact that they described them as computer parts shows not ignorance or innocence, but premeditation to pervert the law.
ca1ic0cat at 08:59 PM JST - 23rd October

Shipping old munitions through the mail? Idiots! Yelnats is right no matter what they were charged with.

They should have removed the bullets from the cartridge and removed the powder. Then everybody would have been safe and there wouldn't have been a crime.

I know an ex SDF officer who is very interested in old muskets. The process involved in getting unworking firearms into the country is amazing. There is also a sake bar in Ebina near prime tower that has really ancient Japanese muskets - so rusty they can't possibly work. But they are all tagged by the cops and checked. Just hanging on the wall.

So anybody who thought shipping this stuff in was OK? Nope, they knew they were outside the law.
smithinjapan at 10:42 PM JST - 23rd October

goldsounds: "I guarantee that 99% of Japanese under 50 have no idea what the Truk islands are or care much about what's sunken there."

I can assure that these guys clearly knew... and knew that what they were doing was wrong enough that they tried to label the bullets as something else.

What's more, call the laws stupid all you want (and compared to what, may I ask? the gun laws in the US? -- I mean, since you say anti-gun laws are 'stupid'), but the fact remains that they are live munitions, and rounds as old as that and in the conditions they were found in carry a high chance of being extremely unstable.
ablestmage at 05:42 AM JST - 24th October

The headline doesn't line up with the story. The charge against the men is for mailing packages that contained gunpowder, not for bringing bullets into the country or for recovering the bullets.
Noliving at 07:32 AM JST - 24th October

but the fact remains that they are live munitions, and rounds as old as that and in the conditions they were found in carry a high chance of being extremely unstable.

Actually the conditions they were found in would make them most likely useless. Bullets can last a long time in dry cool places, if you put them in water, especially salt water which corrodes metal even faster , they very rapidly shall we say become useless, for example if you just take the primer of the bullet and put it in tap water for like 2 days it's pretty much ruined. Chances are those bullets are rusted over which would pretty much ruin the primer making those bullets useless because if the primer has been breached then chances are the water has also hit the propellant and a propellant soaking in water for 60 years is a lot less potent, think of them like bottle rockets, if you shoot them off after 1 year of purchasing them they don't make as loud of bang or go as high. Heck even the shell casing itself being breached would be enough.

The truth of the matter is that bullets don't really become unstable in that they are likely to just suddenly blow up, they just slowly become useless as time goes in if they are kept in ideal conditions. I think you are overestimating the power of the propellant in bullets. I mean if they can't blow up the barrel of the gun when ignited they are probably not that big of a threat even if they were unstable, the dangerous part of a bullet is the bullet or the projectile not the propellant, propellants are not in great enough quantities in bullets to actually really be dangerous.
redneckzombie at 10:35 AM JST - 24th October

This is a stupid law being used against men who technically broke it, but meant and caused no harm to anyone or anything. Japan's anti-gun laws are stupid in and of themselves, assuming that criminals will obey the law, but when innocent men are arrested for possesion of antique bullets that are likely not even capable of firing after years spent at thirty meters below water...I hope they find a loophole or something.
nandakandamanda at 11:27 AM JST - 24th October

The charge against the men is twofold, according to the article above. Importing some ammo, the discovery of which probably led to the second charge, possessing some other bullets at home.

The powder used in fireworks may be of a different possibly weaker type than what is officially recognized and regulated as gunpowder. It would be interesting to know the chemical and/or legal difference in Japan.