Yasuyuki Kanazawa (57) first aroused police suspicions when a detective noted the man had purchased a pencil-style handgun on the internet in February 2016 from a person in Osaka, the Japanese national broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday.
The police searched Kanazawa’s house in central Osaka in August 2016 to discover his collection of 16 combat pistols – its owner’s love and pride – and two replicas which had been altered to be able to fire bullets. According to the police, it was the biggest seizure of firearms in Japan in five years.
Kanazawa, who faces charges of possession of weapons under the Swords and Firearms Control Law, admits to the allegations. He confessed that he had been buying weapons for 15 years from second-hand dealers. According to him, each item cost between 300,000 and one million yen (about $2,650 – 8,840).
Recently Japanese police also reported that a 63-year-old man was arrested in Ehime Prefecture for keeping 12 air pistols at home which were reputed to be powerful enough to kill a person. The suspect said that he believed the weapons were not actual firearms, but gas guns. He also said that collecting guns was his hobby.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a 16-gun collection would hardly raise an eyebrow. According to an October 5, 2015 Washington Post article, there are now more guns than people in the United States. According to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the country's gun-makers produced nearly 11 million firearms in 2013, mostly pistols and rifles.
According to the blog 'gun culture 2.0', "a 2004 national firearms survey found that 48 percent of individual gun owners own four or more firearms, and 3 percent own more than 25 firearms."
In 2015, a rich eccentric named Jeffrey Alan Lash from the affluent Los Angeles suburb of Pacific Palisades was found dead; police inspected his home and found that he'd collected 1,200 guns and 6.5 tons of ammunition and explosive material.
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