crime

Father arrested after boy brings handgun to school

41 Comments

Police have arrested the father of a student after the boy brought a handgun to school in Shime, Fukuoka Prefecture.

According to police, the boy's father, Takaki Wakisaka, a 41-year-old restaurant manager, was questioned about firing several live-ammunition shots from a revolver in a storehouse near his home in the middle of September this year, Fuji TV reported.

After bringing the same gun to school on Nov 20, his son had the firearm confiscated by a teacher who left it in the staff room. On Nov 23, another teacher picked up the gun and while pointing it at a chair, it went off, Fuji reported. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

The boy was quoted by police as saying he thought it was a model gun, not a real one. The teacher who accidentally fired the gun said he also thought it was fake.

Police are investigating further how Wakisaka obtained the gun and how it came into his son's possession.

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41 Comments
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After bringing the same gun to school on Nov 20, his son had the firearm confiscated by a teacher who left it in the staff room. On Nov 23, another teacher picked up the gun and while pointing it at a chair, it went off, Fuji reported. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

You have to be pulling my leg? The teacher didn't report it to the cops and just left a loaded pistol in a desk? And, Abe wants to start teaching morals in schools? He should start by teaching intelligence! What a bunch of idiots!

12 ( +20 / -8 )

Two things that don't add up at all. The kid thought the gun was fake. As a owner of some airsoft guns, what kid with a toy gun NEVER pulls the trigger. He is walking around with what he thinks is a toy, and never "plays" with it?

2nd. Fake gun, the ones that are made of metal usually don't have fake bullets, which the teacher could have easily have seen in a REVOLVER. Why did they not call the cops? 3 days after they took the gun up they did not call the cops? Empty the gun. Check the bullets to see if it was real?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

It's all perfectly plausible. Most of the people involved (except the father and son, perhaps) have likely never seen or touched a real gun and were probably reasonable in assuming this gun wasn't real--how could it be, brought to school by a child in a country without legal access to handguns? Their assumptions are simply not the same as that of, say, the average American.

That said, they probably should have checked, if for nothing else than safety's sake.

20 ( +21 / -1 )

Why wasn`t this guy arrested when they questioned him in September?? I thought all guns were illegal here outside of the guns used by licensed, permit-holding hunters. Can anyone speak to that?

And a loaded gun was just left alone for 3 days in a SCHOOL!!!! The teachers say they thought it was a fake, and Ill take their word for it, but even so, couldnt they have done something, anything with it besides just leaving it in the staff room???

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Sorry man, but these teachers sound very stupid. Did the guy just leave it on the desk? Good thing he didnt pick it up and look into the barrel, wouldve blown his head off. Very stupid teachers and they should be charged for not reporting it. The father and the kid are another story. But those teachers...Wow! no brains.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Fake or not is irrelevant The kid brought a pistol to school and it should have been reported immediately.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

I agree with inakaRob, I also think the kid knew the gun was real. If his dad had shot it in the past, even if he did it while kid was at school...I think it likely kid knew what his dad was doing. He probably wanted to show it to his friends like, hey check this out, a REAL gun!!

Why would he bother to go looking for the gun if he thought it was a toy gun that any kid could get?? (assuming his dad bothered to hide it in the first place--obviously he didn`t bother to lock it up, so...)

And Stephen Knight I can totally see where youre coming from but if it was the same revolver that the guy got in trouble for in September, you can clearly see the end of the bullet casings in the revolver. The casings are metal and you can see the primer caps in the middle...really not something youd expect to see in a toy gun!!! And anybody looking at the gun would probably notice that, no matter how little they knew about guns.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Not enough information re the gun in the article to form a valid opinion. Could this have been a model gun altered to fire live bullets, for example? (Quite common here, with the laws on real guns being so strict.) And there are some great-looking model guns in Japan.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Fake or not is irrelevant The kid brought a pistol to school and it should have been reported immediately. " (I agree) ESPECIALLY IN JAPAN that claims to be so safe and have rigid gun control laws, but wait this was in Fukuoka Prefecture known for Yakdom....Son of a Gun....

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Teachers=FAIL Someone could have been killed by their shear stupidity. Even if they didn't know, they should have called the authorities and have them determine if the gun is real or not.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I was ALWAYS taught since a child( I lived in the mountains, along with other potentialy dangerous animals) that ANY weapon that is in your hands is treated as a REAL weapon.

The respect of the weapon goes as far as the person carrying it.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Teacher needs to be arrested!

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

Real guns in Japan are as foreign as cheap pizza, toy guns are as common as ramen shops. I have no doubt the teacher thought the gun was fake. Take a look on Yahoo auctions for replica guns, and see how many there are, they are identical to the real thing down to the real wood grips or stocks. I see them for sale at festivals, flea markets, and recycle shops. Having owned several of the real thing over the years, I am surprised at how realistic the fake ones are.

Before the war guns were quite common in Japan, and no doubt these are found or dug up from time to time, just like they are in many other places.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The fathers are always paying the price at the end!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The teacher shouldn't have been so stupid and should have checked, you can't assume anything with a firearm.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

another teacher picked up the gun and while pointing it at a chair, it went off, Fuji reported. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

I'm sorry but revolvers don't go off when you point them. You have to pull the trigger.

13 ( +14 / -1 )

Fake or not is irrelevant The kid brought a pistol to school and it should have been reported immediately.

You mean a toy gun should be reported to the police? How odd.

Reading the comments above seems to suggest that a lot seem to be coming from the perspective of countries where guns are common. Obviously the teachers were mistaken, in this one (I think unique) case, but guns are so rare in Japan, especially hand guns, that it is not entirely surprising. If I lived in a country like Syria, the USA or Afganistan, I would react differently.

If a child brought in a box with "atom bomb" written on it, my first instinct would not be to clear a 30km exclusion zone around the school and telephone the army. This might prove to be a mistake, but you have to make judgements.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

I thought a 7 yr old could have believed his Dad had model guns... but, the article is inexact. Read JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. The teen knew what he had. The teachers probably not.

Real guns in Japan are as foreign as cheap pizza

I agree, A phone call and they deliver in 30 minutes. Particularly in Fukuoka, shootings by gangs are getting frequent. Primo, the guy has a gun without a license. Segundo : he lets it around at home. Tertio : there are bullets in it. I wonder if the lovely Dad just does not do the "Allo pizza gun", besides his restaurant.

Take a look on Yahoo auctions for replica guns

For collections, many have more than replica. They are allowed to keep real ones that have been slightly modified and can only serve for display.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

The boy's father should had better kept the loaded gun inaccessible to his son.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Lostrune2; Handguns are ILLEGAL for Japanese Citizens to own. Rifles and Shotguns are NOT. this guy obtained this gun ILLEGALLY somehow, or it is a VERY OLD WWII weapon that was kept in a house for more than 50 years, with amounts to a grain of sand on the beach, in Japan.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

One word: Fukuoka - the place where you will encounter Yakuza henchmen with 'chaka' on the streets the fastest in entire Japan!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Chaka?? Not too sure what chaka is but Fukuoka does not sound like the rest of Japan, sounds a bit more like Fukuoka, USA??

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Chaka means pistol in Yakuza slang. Fukuoka, USA is fair comparision in my opinion ;)

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

For many Japanese the first thing they do when they get a gun is point it and pretend to shoot it!

Rule number 1 with firearms, treat them as loaded and never point it at someone/thing you don't intend to shoot at!

Bringing a gun to school was something I only thought happened in the US...agree the school was lax with the reporting

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Some of you are not looking at it from the JAPAN standpoint. If you pull out a gun many people are going to think it's a fake toy. I remember as a kid IN America, (yes there was a time) where there was NO PROBLEM playing "COPS & ROBBERS" with toy guns etc, America has changed, but in Japan where gun crime (especially handguns) are indeed rare, it is completely plausible to think that the teacher saw the gun, thought it was a toy, took it away and left it in a desk or something. It is also completely plausible to think that another teacher saw the toy gun, thought it was cool (and thought it was a toy) but it turned out to be real. ALL Completely plausible and not crazy if you put yourself into the Japanese state of mind.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Common sense should have prevailed though....

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Not the sort of story I expect coming out of Japan!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

To those saying that guns are so tightly controlled in Japan, let me say that has NOT been my experience. Anecdote time: I have seen enough handguns in Japan, in the possession of people who are completely untrained in their use, to actually make me nervous. The only Desert Eagle I've ever seen in person was being carried by a Japanese bartender in Shizuoka, who couldn't wait to show it off to an American girl. (My family reported that particular shady character to the police, and the gun was confiscated.)

I'm going to hazard a guess that this kid was also showing off his new "toy".

From what I'm told, there's a lively black market for firearms in Japan. It may be a regional thing. Think about it, though: how often have you heard of police raiding homes or cars for guns? What have they actively done to confiscate them from those who might have them? Legally purchased firearms are quite restricted, but I've not heard of much being done to collect the, erm, others...

That being said, guns don't "just go off". That teacher totally had it out for the chair!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Considering how rare it is for someone in Japan to have actually seen, never mind handle, a real handgun, I could easily see some teachers thinking it was a toy. It's simply outside their sphere of experience to know what you're supposed to do with a possible firearm. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will soon be new guidelines for school staff in regards to firearms regardless of whether the staff thinks it's a toy or not.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Funny. I lived in Japan for almost a decade and never saw a handgun.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Not sure why some seems think it was a revolver. Nothing in the article says that, just says "hand gun". I would have thought that it would be more likely to be a tiny pocket 9 mm pistols as a Tec PF-9 or Barretta Nano. Also today you can make a gun with a 3D printer. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/3d-printer-gun Kind of scary isn't it? As for the teacher who fired the gun, you would think he would have taken off the safety to fire it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In Japan? Wow, that's just strange on so many levels. And yeah, I've never seen a handgun in Japan unless it was on a cops belt. Really odd.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It sounds like we are dealing with morons from the ground up on this one. The kid didn't think it was real? the teacher just left it sitting in the staff room? another teacher picked it up and fired it off? I've never owned, held, or fired a revolver, but it's still pretty darn easy to tell if there are bullets in the chambers and if it's real or not.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I guess the kid told the teacher's it was fake and they believed him.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

'I thought it was fake' so you fired it?? haha Ignorance is priceless!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Stupid people should be able to know the difference between a fake and a real gun!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

how old the son ?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why did the teacher fire a shot? That teacher should be arrested. Arresting the Father is quite a funny move, if the son took the gun without the father noticing how has the father contributed to the crime?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I think its about time the teachers in all schools go on a gun awareness day, this way they can be taught to recognise the real ones from the fake ones. and then they could react accordingly. but pure stupidity to leave it in a desk for 1,2,3 days, step 1; take it from the child 2: place it in locked secure cabinet. 3: call cops. job done in ten minute flat.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Arresting the Father is quite a funny move, if the son took the gun without the father noticing how has the father contributed to the crime?

Because he left a loaded firearm where a child could get hold of it. If anyone had been hurt by the gun going off, it would have been the father's responsibility, even if he was 100 miles away at the time. You simply do not leave a loaded gun lying around in such a way that you do not notice if someone walks off with it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

its easier for kids to get guns than adults.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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