US gun laws: disarming a nation can be done, Japan took all the swords from its samurai
- Weapons-confiscations programmes, known as ‘sword hunts’, occurred throughout Japanese history
- Today, all firearms are owned or controlled by the government, as in the case with most modern nation-states
I have only been to the United States once, to San Francisco many years ago, and so my knowledge of the US is almost exclusively gleaned from news reports, movies and television, as well as a handful of American friends, who have lived outside their country for a long time. Of course, the US is many things, both good and bad, but the one thing I find totally incomprehensible is the country’s love affair with firearms.
Having lived in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, where the only people who are allowed to carry firearms are law enforcement and military personnel, I find it terrifying that a random person in the US can just shoot anyone, on a street, in a supermarket or in a school. Arguments for and against gun control are well-documented and I can add nothing to the discussion, but I have to say that this issue shows, often with devastating effect, how ideological adherence trumps common sense.
Gun-buy-back programmes have been carried out in several cities, but given the relative ease with which rifles, handguns and even semi-automatic assault weapons can be bought, because it is every American’s constitutional right to bear arms, their effectiveness is debatable.
In Japan’s history, weapons-confiscation programmes known as “sword hunts” (katanagari) were implemented across the country several times. After the end of the Heian period (794–1185), with no curbs on civilians carrying swords, either for self-defence or as a fashion accessory, there was a proliferation of weapons among the population. The possession of weapons became even more widespread during the Sengoku period (circa 1467-1600), a particularly bellicose and violent era.
Oda Nobunaga, the shrewd and powerful feudal lord who began the reunification of Japan in the late 16th century, undertook a sword hunt over the territories he controlled to remove any weapons that might be used to revolt against his leadership. Another sword hunt was decreed in 1588, when his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi became the de facto ruler of Japan.
In this new katanagari, all peasants in Japan had to hand over their armour, swords, spears and firearms (which had recently been introduced to Japan by the Portuguese) to local officials. The metal collected would be melted down to manufacture not ploughshares or iron thrones, but a huge statue of Buddha, in Kyoto. The peasants were told that, by surrendering their deadly weapons, they would accumulate merit for an improved afterlife.
A corollary of Hideyoshi’s sword hunt was an even sharper distinction between the nobility and samurai, who were still allowed to bear arms, and the peasant class.
The last sword hunt was enacted in 1876, at the start of the Meiji Restoration. As a manifestation of the modernising country’s attempts to remove feudal class distinctions, the samurai were banned from carrying swords. All implements whose sole purpose was to cause injury or death were to be owned or controlled by the government, as in the case with most modern nation-states. Unless, of course, if you are in America.
