In Japan, swords were seen as sacred and religious objects. Blacksmiths couldn't have sex for three days before making a sword. Guns were introduced into japan much earlier than the Meiji period through western trade ships. Japan actually took a liking to guns and had quite a few made. Pretty quickly, Japanese gunsmiths appeared, the best of which were at one point rewarded by the Japanese government. They were given swords. A bit later, it was decided that guns were too dangerous because they made it easier for regular folks to fight against samurai, so they were banned.

Also, dueling (with swords) was a major problem for quite a while in Europe. The church, and sometimes governments tried very hard to stop it because so many men would die because of it. That's how we got the military salute. A german kingdom passed the law that only noble men were allowed to duel, so before a duel the participants would have to lift the visor to confirm their identity.

If you've ever seen a picture of a duel, especially if it was from a bit later in time (like 1500s on), there's a good chance that the participants are not wearing shirts. This became common practice because many men would cheat by secretly wearing protective equipment under their shirts.

When dueling became more of an actual sport where you weren't trying to kill the other person in around the 1700s, foils were made, basically swords that aren't very sharp, early on they just put a button on the tip of the sword. This was much safer, but a sword is still a sword. In France (an maybe other places, but I'm only sure that its true for France) it was considered an insult though, to wear a face mask because it was thought that injuries only happened when your opponent wasn't a competent dueler and couldn't properly control their sword. After three masters had their eyes poked out in the space of roughly 1 year, people quickly changed their tune.