content: Aren't as strict as you think, just a lot of paperwork, waiting, mandatory storage requirements and mandatory random home inspections. But you can own just about anything the JDF uses with the exception of HE and rocketry.  When I lived in the region, there was an incentive to increase hunters against the wild boar population, something like 50k yen per boar tax deduction.  Looser rules for US Active Duty Military living abroad since if you ship personal weapons the wait period is reduced and the storage options are somewhat more flexible, 1 gun locker instead of 1 gun locker and ammunition locker, though that was over a decade ago and things may have changed.