I was staying at a B&B run by a couple in BC many years ago. The wife told me that her husband was from East Germany and had escaped from East Berlin when he was a teenager.
She also mentioned to me, since I was American and all, that her husband kept a pistol in a coffee can out in the barn, just in case he needed it some day.
My dad’s cousin was a big shooter and hunter in Norway. He had one old gun that was registered with the government. “Everyone knows that I shoot - so I figured I better have a gun registered.”
When he was a teen he hid when the Nazi’s came into his town and then he joined the resistance. The first thing the German’s did when they got to a town was go to city hall and get the list of registered guns and the census records. Then they would confiscate the guns and round up and question the fighting-aged men.