Abe shooting: why gun violence is so rare in zero-tolerance Japan

Attack on former PM has sent shockwaves through country with one of world’s lowest rates of gun violence

Japan has close to zero tolerance of gun ownership and one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world, making the attack on Shinzo Abe a particularly extraordinary act of violence.

A 1958 postwar law on the possession of swords and firearms states: “No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords.”

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