Crime Shop clerk fights off three robbers in Okachimachi

At around 6:40 p.m. on Sunday evening, a pair of men on a motor bike pulled up to a store that sells precious metals in Tokyo's Ueno district, located a block away from Okachimachi Station. Without removing their helmets, the men entered the store, called Ryutsu, and began smashing its glass display cases with what appeared to be crowbars. Soon after, a third man, on his own motorbike, stopped in front of the store and tried to head inside, also keeping his helmet on and removing a crowbar or pipe from his jacket. Almost immediately after he crossed over the threshold, however, the other two robbers came running back out, colliding with their accomplice. The tables had been turned by an employee armed with a weapon with greater reach: a polearm or sasumata. The suspenders-wearing polearm-wielding employee was joined by a coworker, an older man in a suit. As they chased the robbers out of the shop, the suited man kicked over one of the bikes and pushed over the other. Still brandishing their crowbars, the three robbers backpedaled away from the swings of the man catcher, and when they eventually turned tail and ran, the employee in suspenders then turned the polearm on one of the bikes, slamming it down in a series of overhead smashes ostensibly with the aim of damaging it and limiting its effectiveness as a getaway vehicle. The criminals were unable to steal anything from the store, and no injuries to the employees or bystanders were reported.

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johnnyG said:

Hmm, do those work on bears, too?

I got our snow shovels out of our shed yesterday, and I've had lots of practice with those. I'd guess there'd be a lot of skill transfer from one to the other.

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A company in Tochigi Prefecture that produces sasumata told NHK that it has seen a demand for the weapon since fall 2022. The surge became even more pronounced after Sunday's robbery, with orders climbing from a few every month to 10 per day. Company president Sano Takemitsu stressed that the sasumata is a weapon primarily used for self-defense and not to instigate fights.

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Uncle Frank said:

Here in Maine we recently had a mass shooting with the shooter still on the loose. The clerk at the local gun store said there were several hundred people lined up the day after to buy a handgun for protection. Scares me to think about all those people with no training and no idea about the laws governing their use now have a dangerous weapon. I've been shooting since 1955 and still have a healthy respect for how dangerous any gun can be without training and knowledge of when & how to use them. I wonder , in Japan , can the average citizen buy and own pepper spray for protection ?

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Uncle Frank said:

I wonder , in Japan , can the average citizen buy and own pepper spray for protection ?

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There are no laws against possession or use, but using it could result in imprisonment, depending on the damage caused to the target.

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Uncle Frank said:

Lately in the gun world , the talk is you don't shoot anyone. They advise you run away or do anything possible to avoid shooting anyone , even if it will save lives. Even police are being told not to shoot anyone if there's anyway to avoid it. It's a little too long to go into all the reasons not to shoot someone , but after reading all the articles , the penalties for getting involved are way to severe. Liberal Maine even has a deal that if a criminal breaks into your home , you have to give a warning and allow them to leave. If you catch them stealing any of your property , you are not allowed to use a gun to stop them. The days of the wild west gun use in the US are long gone replaced by liberal views of the law. The sad part is , new gun owners are not getting any training on gun laws and it may cost lives. I think in a few more years , even hunting of animals will fade. I've only been shooting paper targets now for a long time and even that urge is fading.

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