Jul 10, 2022 (1news) - The 40-centimetre-long firearm that was used to kill former prime minister Shinzo Abe on Friday as he campaigned for his ruling party in Nara, western Japan, looked crude, more like a propellant made of pipes taped together and filled with explosives.
A raid of the suspect’s home, a one-room apartment in Nara, turned up several such guns, police said. Unlike standard weapons, handmade guns are practically impossible to trace, making an investigation difficult.
Such weapons are rarely used in Japan, where most attacks involve stabbings or dousing a place with gasoline and setting it ablaze, or running haywire on the street in a vehicle.
Strict gun control laws likely made the suspect choose a handcrafted weapon. Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested on the spot, was a former member of Japan's navy, and knew how to handle and assemble weapons.
Crime experts say instructions on how to make guns are floating around on the internet, and guns can be made with a 3D printer.
Hideto Ted Osanai, chief executive at the International Bodyguard Association in Japan, and other experts believe that the Japanese may have merely learned superficial things like escort formation rather than the prevention mindset critical to security.
“Japanese are so used to leading peaceful lives, the security guards were caught asleep,” says Yasuhiro Sasaki, president of Safety-Pro, a Tokyo-based security company.
Sasaki said he couldn’t believe that no one moved to protect Abe in the seconds between the first and the second shot, a scene shown over and over on national TV. ...continue reading
