After the Sword Hunt, keeping arms that supported the right to judge criminal cases as a safeguard military police power had the form of waiving the right and people in a farming rank showed their waiver by not wearing a sword, their rank symbol, but actually an individual community had big stockpiles of swords, spears, and guns under the pretext of dedicating things to Shinto and Buddhist deities or the extermination of harmful animals and the governmental powers could not openly touch them even after the Meiji Restoration.
こうした自検断権の裏づけとなる軍事警察力の保証としての武器の保有も、建前上は刀狩以降放棄した形式をとり、百姓身分の者は身分表象としての帯刀を放棄することでそれを示していたが、実際は個々の村には膨大な数の刀槍、鉄砲が神仏への献納物、あるいは害獣駆除の名目で備蓄されており、明治維新以降も国家権力はあからさまにこれに手をつけられない状態であった。