Guns and votes

Japan faces a snap election on August 30, after Taro Aso, Japan’s prime minister, dissolved parliament. Can the opposition Democratic Party of Japan bring the changes the country needs? We also look at media comment on fighting the Taliban, and on a rare defeat for America’s powerful gun lobby.

Rising sun

Financial Times

…The beneficiary of the electorate’s desire for change is the 10-year-old opposition DPJwhich, barring catastrophe, will form the next government under its leader Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister. The centre-left DPJ, a broad coalition of LDP defectors, technocrats and socialists, has so far been better at saying what it is against — corruption, incompetence — than what it is for. ... Japan’s challenges include mountainous debt, an ageing population and a frayed social security system. Spelling out the painful choices that solving such problems requires hardly helps to win votes. …

The wrong battle

The Guardian

The war against [Taliban] militants will not be won by expanding the battle-space. The resolution to this "good war'' will not come from Kabul alone, but will be dependent on every neighbouring country with a stake in the conflict. .... We have to stop thinking of Helmand as the frontline in a war that ends on the streets of London or Manhattan, and start thinking of what the growing conflagration is doing to Afghanistan's immediate neighbourhood. There are no good options after eight years of warfare, only least worst ones. We should stop pouring more oil on to this fire and start thinking of realistic outcomes. …

A good shot

Los Angeles Times

... The nation dodged a bullet Wednesday. In a rare defeat for the powerful gun lobby, the Senate routed an amendment that would have federalized concealed-weapons laws by forcing all states that issue such permits to gun owners to honor those granted by other states. States with strict rules regarding concealed firearms, such as California, essentially would have had their laws nullified by states with lax rules. … The gun lobby's fanatical disregard for public safety is not going to stop, and it will take courage to halt the agenda of those who watch as 276 Americans a day are injured or killed by a bullet but who think the answer is to arm everyone.