Several times in Japanese history, the new ruler sought to ensure his position by calling a sword hunt (刀狩, katanagari).
In 1588, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, having become kampaku or "imperial regent", ordered a new sword hunt;[3] Hideyoshi, like his predecessor Oda, sought to solidify separations in the class structure, denying commoners weapons while allowing them to the nobility, the samurai class.
In addition, Toyotomi's sword hunt, like Oda's, was intended to prevent peasant uprisings and to deny weapons to his adversaries.
This hunt may have been inspired by a peasant uprising in Higo Province the year prior, but also served to disarm the sōhei of Mount Kōya and Tōnomine.
Toyotomi claimed that the confiscated weapons would be melted down and used to create a giant image of the Buddha for the Asuka-dera monastery in Nara.
The chief goal of this was to place a check on the threat posed by rōnin, masterless wandering samurai who had the potential not only for crime and violence in general, but for banding together to overthrow Toyotomi rule.
For example, during the Bunsei era (1818–1830 CE), the Shogunate investigated the weapons owned by farmers in the Kantō region.