content: Actually, that's not quite true. It's possible to own a gun in Japan, but the hoops you have to jump through to own one are nearly impossible. I was an exchange student in Japan. My adopted father was a Shinto Priest and volunteer firefighter. He had a shotgun that he'd use to hunt wild boars. The rules for keeping a gun are really insane, for instance, you need to keep the gun in a disassembled state in an approved safe. And you can't keep the ammunition stored in the same building as the gun. So, he kept the gun in the house and the ammunition in the shrine he was in charge of.