Firearms ownership in japan BEFORE WW2?

Japanese peasants got all their weapons taken from them after the unification of japan

Considering how Nazi Germany had more relaxed gun laws than modern day Britain,I'd imagine Japan would've had similar laws.

>>33933041
How about between 1870's and 1945?

>>33933012
To be honest, I don't know, and quick Googling isn't helping.

I would guess not, though. The Meiji restoration banned the carrying of swords, but I cannot for the life of me find a translated text of the actual full edict. Some references to it imply it was a larger ban on weapons, which would make sense.

In essence, the government wanted force to be only in the hands of the government. Force in the hands of those outside of it was viewed as a sign of insurrection by it, so besides hunting shotguns I can't imagine there being much of a market.

Even more to the point, I don't know of any turn of the century Japanese pistols other than Military ones and the Hino-Komuro. I also don't know of any import or proof markings for civilian guns. Chrysanthemums abound, but those were strictly for government weapons.

I'm pretty sure the only private purchase available was for officers. But, to be honest, I can't read Japanese, nor do I have a nice collection of translated Japanese turn of the century law.

>>33933710
Well i guess that it means that japanese have always been slaves to their rulers.
Is there any movement for right to keep and bear arms in japan?

Firearm ownership was never big in Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate basically made it illegal for non-samurai to have any kind of weapon under penalty of death in order to avoid uprisings. The Meiji era probably had slightly more lenient laws, but I don't know much about that. There used to be a decent Hunter culture in Japan, but that's dwindling these days.

>>33933041
Wrong, it was after, only shortly, but still after. Peasants could own Tanegashimas for the first 10 years or so after the Meiji restoration.

>>33933866
I met an old bearded man in Japan who carried a sword. He was nice, his sword was nice. I have no idea if he was allowed to do that but nobody seemed to mind.

It wouldn't have been common, but it was legal to own pistols before WWII. You can commonly find old Meiji era registered pistols here in the US that were taken home by GIs. Here is a S&W model 2 that is so marked.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-antiques/230182-japanese-marked-s-w-no-2-a.html

And technically all officers of the Japanese military bought their pistols with their own money, but they were all bought and sold at officer clubs so that was a little different.

File: Mutsuo_Toi.jpg (14KB, 220x300px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 220x300px

This guy had a browning shotgun
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuyama_massacre