Japan has almost completely eliminated gun deaths — here's how

Japan is a country of more than 127 million people, but it rarely sees more than 10 gun deaths a year.
Culture is one reason for the low rate, but gun control is a major one, too.
Japan has a long list of tests that applicants must pass before gaining access to a small pool of guns.

Gun control discussions crop up every time there is an attention-grabbing shooting in the US. The most recent is the November 5 mass shooting in Texas involving a 26-year-old former airman in the US Air Force. The shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, killed 26 people and injured 20 more in a church shooting in the small town of Sutherland Springs.

One of the biggest questions: How does the US prevent this from happening over and over again?

Although the US has no exact counterpart elsewhere in the world, some countries have taken steps that can provide a window into what successful gun control looks like. Japan, a country of 127 million people and yearly gun deaths rarely totaling higher than 10, is one such country.

"Ever since guns entered the country, Japan has always had strict gun laws," Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a British advocacy group, told the BBC. "They are the first nation to impose gun laws in the whole world, and I think it laid down a bedrock saying that guns really don't play a part in civilian society."

Regulations upon regulations

Japan's success in curbing gun deaths is intimately linked with its history. Following World War II, pacifism emerged as one of the dominant philosophies in the country. Police only started carrying firearms after American troops made them, in 1946, for the sake of security. It's also written into Japanese law, as of 1958, that "no person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords."

Government has since loosened the law, but the fact Japan enacted gun control from the stance of prohibition is important. (It's also one of the main factors separating Japan from the US, where the Second Amendment broadly permits people to own guns.)

Japan has also embraced the idea that fewer guns in circulation will result in fewer deaths. Each prefecture — which ranges in size from half a million people to 12 million, in Tokyo — can operate a maximum of three gun shops; new magazines can only be purchased by trading in empty ones; and when gun owners die, their relatives must surrender the deceased member's firearms.