It's a plausible argument I suppose. And Europe never went through a comparable period of peace and unification (at any rate prior to the present day), so it s

It's a plausible argument I suppose. And Europe never went through a comparable period of peace and unification (at any rate prior to the present day), so it sort of makes sense that Europe stuck with its guns and Japan did not. And yet it still raises questions. It happened very suddenly as these things go (over a few years or decades, rather than centuries), and seems to have been accompanied by a deep, long-lasting cultural shift. Even after Japanese isolation ended in the mid 19th century, there didn't seem to be any real reversion (hence, indirectly, the originally linked article). If the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate was enough to make Japan give up the gun, why was it's collapse not enough to make Japan re-embrace it? If the answer is "unique Japanese culture", why was it not present at the start of the Sengoku period? It's not like the Sengoku period was just way more violent than the 1850-1950 period. Anyhow, the book I linked (which I last read over 10 years ago, so I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the details) goes into a lot more detail, digging through historical records and evaluating most of the obvious theories. I highly recommend it!