Japan has close to zero tolerance for gun ownership and one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world, attacking Shinzo Abe was a shock to people in the country.
A 1958 postwar law on the possession of swords and firearms states: “No one shall possess a firearm or fireman or a sword or swords”.
The pathway to gun ownership in Japan takes several steps. One of them is that potential gun owners need to join a hunting or shooting club, then have to take a firearm class and pass a written exam, before getting a doctor to state they are mentally fit and have no history of drug dependency.
A 2022 report from the University of Washington revealed that, while the US had more than four firearm homicides per 100,000 people in 2019, Japan had almost zero.
There are strict laws about how many gun shops are allowed to open in most of the countries’ 47 prefectures, a total of three gun shops can operate in each prefecture.