Abstract
Every time a mass shooting occurs in the United States, there is a call for tighter regulation of civilian firearm possession. Debates often ensue as to whether tighter regulation would lead to a reduction in the number of deaths and injuries caused by firearms. In such debates, present-day Japan is often used as an example of a correlation between tight regulation and a low level of firearmsrelated deaths and injuries. Stringent firearm regulation in Japan is said to date back centuries. It has been claimed that successful precedents which formed the historical and social basis of current Japanese gun control include regulations enacted by Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the late sixteenth century, by the Edo shogunate between the early seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, and by the Meiji government between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. But what if the ‘successful historical precedents’ are not based on historical facts? This article addresses this widely held myth concerning the Japanese case and seeks to contribute to the theory on the relationship between arms availability and armed violence based on the available historical findings.
https://ror.org/02rqvrp93 
