A shooting incident Monday involving more than 10 armed gang members, who attacked the office of a right-wing organization in central Tokyo, killing two people and wounding five others, showed that guns are now becoming more of a threat to the lives of ordinary citizens.

However, although the number of guns in the possession of gangs is believed to have increased in recent years, police have been confiscating fewer firearms.

This indicates that current efforts to prevent guns and other weapons from falling into the hands of the underworld organizations are ineffective.

Recently, there has also been a tendency among organized gangs, which have been hampered from engaging in money-making activities by the Antigang Law, to hook up with or take over right-wing organizations to start businesses, such as debt collection agencies.

Is Japan's reputation as one of the safest nations in the world an illusion?

The number of guns confiscated by police in the first half of this year dropped by 93 from the same period last year to 413, the National Police Agency said.

"Confiscating firearms has become more and more difficult because weapons are being hidden in a skillful and organized way," a police official said.

The number of guns confiscated by police peaked at 1,880 in 1995 and has gradually decreased by 100 to 200 a year. Last year, police confiscated 1,001 guns, representing a 53 percent drop from 1995.

Last year, police discovered 18 sites where gangs had stored weapons, far below the 33 places found in 1996.

By contrast, the number of shooting incidents involving gang members has increased from 108 in 1996 to 133 last year.

"Guns have proliferated among rank-and-file gang members and they are less hesitant about using them," a police investigator said.

A longstanding feud between Yamaguchi-gumi and Kokusui-kai--organized gangs that staged a shoot-out in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, in June last year--highlights that tendency.

The feud then erupted into a further 16 violent episodes in Tokyo and five prefectures, including one in which a member of an organization affiliated with Yamaguchi-gumi fired four shots at the office of a Kokusui-kai-affiliated organization in Ginza, Tokyo. The shooting occurred in broad daylight, with crowds of shoppers walking nearby.

On several occasions, ordinary citizens have been unwittingly caught in the middle of shoot-outs between gang members.

In February 1990, a 53-year-old self-employed manager of an employment agency was fatally shot by a gang member, who mistook the victim for a member of a rival gang.

In June 1990, a 66-year-old former employee of NTT Corp. in Osaka was shot to death and in November 1990, a 19-year-old night school student suffered the same fate, after both of them were mistaken for gang members by other gang members.

In August 1997, a high-ranking member of Yamaguchi-gumi was fatally shot in a hotel coffee shop in Kobe. A dentist, who was in the coffee shop at the time of the shooting, was hit by a stray bullet and died of the gunshot wounds a week later.

In addition, there have been many cases in which ordinary citizens have been the targets of shooting attacks.

In April, a 60-year-old former manager of Suntory Ltd. and his 55-year-old wife were shot to death by a 51-year-old man, who was a former employee of the company.

Twenty-six people were killed or injured in shootings in the six months from January to June.

The number of robberies in which guns were used in the period also increased to 63 from 47 in the same period last year, representing a 34 percent increase.

One of the reasons for the proliferation of guns is that organized gangs, which have lost some of the sources of their income, have begun selling guns to ordinary citizens.

"As for the current situation, we have not yet found an effective way to deal with the dangerous tendency (of increasing gun use)," a police official said.