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News Former PM Abe assassinated during campaign speech in Nara

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Ex-PM Abe shot twice in the chest while campaigning in Nara.

Ex-PM Abe in critical condition after being shot while campaigning in Nara

WARNING: Graphic photo shown below. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an arch-conservative and one of the country's most divisive figures, was shot and critically wounded during a campaign speech Friday in Nara. He was airlifted to a hospital but officials said he was not breathing and...
japantoday.com


Ex-Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe said in a tweet that Mr Abe was in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest.

Shinzo Abe: Japan ex-leader assassinated while giving speech

A man has admitted to shooting the former PM during a campaign event in the city of Nara, police say.
www.bbc.com

安倍晋三元首相、銃撃され心肺停止か　奈良の駅前　男を確保 | 毎日新聞

8日午前11時25分ごろ、奈良市の近鉄大和西大寺駅周辺で街頭演説をしていた安倍晋三元首相（67）が銃撃され、奈良県立医科大付属病院に搬送された。搬送した消防によると心肺停止状態という。奈良県警は現場付近で自動式の拳銃のようなものを持っていた同県の山上徹也容疑者（41）を殺人未遂容疑で現行犯逮捕した
mainichi.jp


TBS named the perpetrator as Yamagami Tetsuya (山上徹也), a man in his 40s.


Source: Twitter
 
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A video of the apparent assassination attempt:



Mr Abe was conscious when transported to Nara Medical University Hospital by helicopter but shows no vital signs.
 
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NHK has just reported that according to LDP sources, Mr Abe has passed away:

LDP sources say former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has died. He was shot during a speech on Friday in the city of Nara, near Kyoto.
Click to expand...

Former PM Abe Shinzo dies after being shot | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

A senior Liberal Democratic Party official says former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has died in a hospital where he was receiving treatment. He was shot on the street in Nara City, western Japan, at around 11:30 a.m. on Friday. He was campaigning for the upcoming Upper House election. He...
www3.nhk.or.jp

Confirmed by the BBC:

Japan's ex-leader dies after being shot while giving speech


安倍晋三元首相、演説中に銃撃され死亡　約7年8カ月の歴代最長政権：朝日新聞デジタル

　自民党の安倍晋三元首相が8日、演説中に銃撃され、死亡した。67歳だった。第2次安倍政権の発足以降の連続在職日数は2822日。約7年8カ月に及び、佐藤栄作元首相を抜いて歴代最長だった。憲法改正を悲願と…
www.asahi.com
 
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More updates: the police reported that Yamagami Tetsuya, 41, who was arrested for the murder of Mr Abe, told investigators that he held no political grudge toward Abe. He served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (2002-2005) and was a resident of Nara.


It appears that he used a double-barrelled contraption consisting of two metal pipes tied together with tape, a shotgun the media referred to as a "home-made gun" (手製の銃).




The video below shows the perpetrator standing behind Mr Abe just seconds before the attack.



Mr Abe had just started his stump speech at Yamato Saidaiji Station in Nara.




Shinzo Abe death: shock in Japan at killing of former PM during election campaign

Police believe attacker bore grudge against Abe as some critics question level of security surrounding Japan’s longest-serving PM
www.theguardian.com
 
I wonder what the motivation was. If it wasn't political maybe it was personal?

Still, its a shocking thing to see from a country that really has no gun violence at least in comparison with a lot of other countries.
 
An interesting observation by @Kjeld on FB: from 1860 (Ii Naosuke) to 2022 (Abe Shinzo), there were 21 political assassinations in Japan. That's one assassination every 7.7 years. Two people survived such attacks: Kishi Nobusuke (Abe's maternal grandfather) in 1960 (he was stabbed six times) and Motoshima Hitoshi, then-Mayor of Nagasaki, who was shot in the back in 1990. So political violence in Japan is not that rare.
 
Petaris said:
I wonder what the motivation was. If it wasn't political maybe it was personal?
Click to expand...
According to the AP:
Police said Yamagami was responding calmly to questions and had admitted to attacking Abe, telling investigators he had plotted to kill him because he believed rumors about the former leader's connection to a certain organization that police did not identify.

I'm glad it wasn't a legal gun. That would have probably caused a big hassle for legal gun owners who already have to go through a rigorous process to own a hunting gun.
 

Its saying a lot that this is a huge deal in Japan, the gun thing not the assassination. Here in Chicago it would just be a normal day.
 
now shooting in a back - what a brave warrior
that what happens, when twiddlers knows about thier impunity and ready for soft-compfy isolation
well...still my oppinion - i got no rights to say anyone how to live, but realy sad about this terroristic accident(
 
When we hear of a politician being assassinated we assume it's for a political or ideological goal, so it was a shock to see a retiree assassinated. While I don't care for Abe's politics I never wished him ill, and this was quite a sad shock. It was so out of left field, and the details are so bizarre, it speaks to the state of mind in the killer. Hopefully we'll learn some context to make sense of this senseless act. For him to go through all this trouble... I'm guessing either a mental health crisis is at play, or he just got majorly duped into thinking something terrible about the former prime minister. It worries me greatly that it was his belief that Abe was part of a group that drove this man to literally build his own gun and carry out this attack. I wonder if we'll find out which group he thought was so evil.

For some reason, this reminded me of the rumors swirling around the Georgia guidestones, a small roadside attraction commissioned by an anonymous donor in 1980, led to them being the subject of campaign promises for some extreme politicians recently. They were engraved in several languages with rules for rebuilding civilization in case of an apocalypse, and some of the wording triggered anti-globalist sentiments. So while most people had never even heard of the sculpture, the name was circulating in right wing circles as an evil presence. This culminated in the guidestones being literally bombed (and subsequently demolished) just recently. All because of an internet rumor.

The internet has democratized reality, and the ability for an idea to be introduced into the collective hive mind and then amplified and spread throughout the world has immense power, but can have destructive consequences. It's like walking down the magazine and tabloid aisle of a grocery store, but all the covers are gone. So is this news? That's up to you! A baby born with bat ears and JFK is still alive, while Shinzo Abe was the secret leader of Aum Shinrikyo; it's all true! And while most people will recognize and dismiss BS when they see it, there will always be someone who will take it seriously. Everything you read online is reality for someone out there. That's a scary prospect, when it only takes one crazed determined individual to commit a terrible act.

Through the same mechanism that this man was likely radicalized, large groups of people are being convinced that the people they disagree with are actually committing the most heinous crimes against humanity, and are to be targeted and destroyed. The people who are constantly being bombarded with tabloid-level sensationalized scandals grow impatient, and go from saying "Someone should do something about that!" to "No one is doing anything about it, so I may as well step up." They may think they're being heroic even.

What a waste. What a horrible waste.
 
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And the people creating this information typically have a profit or notoriety motive. I don't think they truly believe what they are disseminating. It's sad that so many people believe these things. And it's not just the mentally ill who are falling for it.
 
That's the most insidious part, the flip side to Poe's law. Even if the people writing it don't believe, someone out there will. And so the monster feeds itself.
 
nice gaijin said:
It worries me greatly that it was his belief that Abe was part of a group that drove this man to literally build his own gun and carry out this attack. I wonder if we'll find out which group he thought was so evil.
Click to expand...

We don't know anything about his political views, so this is purely speculative. However, unless he referred to an imaginary group, he could have hinted at an ultranationalist organisation such as Nippon Kaigi. Few Japanese are aware of their existence. There was online chatter about his referring to religious groups, such as Soka Gakkai, but that's not consistent with what little the police have revealed so far.

Update: Reportedly, he told the police that he initially planned to attack a leader of a religious group. He has denied he committed the crime because he was opposed to Abe's political beliefs.
 
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I blame the internet, and specifically social media, for making it so easy for this type of misinformation to spread to so many. But I also think that the lack of critical thinking and common sense is a big part of the issue. The later has existed forever, but the former has amplified its effects.
 
Conspiracy theories galore: based on reports of the shooter being motivated by a hatred for a particular organisation he associated with Shinzo Abe, some netizens believe it to be the Korea-based religious group Unification Church. The church, whose members are notably referred to as Moonies, supports Korean reunification, decries communism and supports politically conservative causes. Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump supported the church in the past.

From Wikipedia:

Source:

Prime Minister Abe sent congratulatory telegrams to Unification Church

www.japan-press.co.jp



Source: Twitter link 1 - Twitter link 2


Parts of the story were confirmed by police:


Shooter says he believed Abe promoted religious group that bankrupted his mother

The man who fatally shot former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told police that his mother had made a "huge donation" to a religious body, and he harbored a grudge against the group, which he believed was associated with the Japanese leader, investigative sources said Saturday. A day after the death…
japantoday.com
 
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More details emerge: Yamagami Tetsuya, the suspect, told police that his family disintegrated because his mother was obsessed with a religious group he accuses Abe of promoting (see above).

Man held in ex-PM Abe shooting claims family fell apart due to religious group - The Mainichi

NARA -- The suspect in the July 8 assassination of ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told investigators that his family disintegrated because of his mo
mainichi.jp

Also, more questions were raised about the efficiency of Abe's security detail, which left his back completely unprotected.

Questions raised about possible security lapse in protecting Abe | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

www.asahi.com

At a press briefing on Saturday in Nara, Tomoaki Onizuka, head of the Nara prefectural police, acknowledged flaws in the protection that had been given to Mr. Abe. "It is undeniable that there were problems in the security," Mr. Onizuka said.
Click to expand...

After a Brutal Assassination, Japan Mourns and Carries On

A day after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s killing, Japan, where gun violence of any kind is rare, was just beginning to process the shock.
www.nytimes.com
 
From the pictures , I thought the only thing that made the gun look even close to a camera was the strap. Shooting a gun made from hardware store parts is always a bit risky , I wonder if he test fired it before the shooting? Using a battery to fire it is a bit different , bet he got the instructions on how to build it off the internet. Most people would have tried making a gun with a 3D printer these days.
 
Ohhh man, if that's the case then this is just layers of tragedy. I'm sorry this guy's mom fell into their web; cults will tear apart a family... seems like he lashed out at whomever he could. Since the founder and self-proclaimed second coming of Christ, Sun Myung Moon died, his son has taken his flock in a new, darker direction. They now worship the gun.

We Spent a Wild Weekend with the Gun-Worshipping Moonie Church That's Trying to Go MAGA

“Jesus is an assault weapons manufacturer.”
www.vice.com
 
It would be a very expensive 3D printer. Mine can only make plastic. And not the Glock type. More like the happy meal toy type.
 
mdchachi said:
It would be a very expensive 3D printer. Mine can only make plastic. And not the Glock type. More like the happy meal toy type.
Click to expand...
I think the new 3D printed ghost guns are pushing the limits of regulations in the US, with increasingly anonymity and ease, people can print or machine for themselves the "heart" of the weapon. All the other parts can be tooled or simply bought with no restrictions, since they don't comprise a gun on their own. As if our ratio of firearms to people weren't already something to behold.

People who aren't around guns don't reach for guns when they get mad or scared. So Japan has pretty much quashed gun violence through strict regulation, though it goes well beyond anything I think could fly in the US, where the slightest hint of a regulation is enough to get a chorus of lawmakers choked up. You'd have to either really want or really need a gun to jump through all those hoops to get a firearm in Japan. There's not much you can do to keep a gun out of someone's hands if they're committed enough to make their own weapon at home.

The only lesson I've seen so far (aside from the tangential damage of enabling cults) was to harden security detail and intelligence. Famous figures naturally attract dangerous attention from stalkers and obsessives. A guy who runs protection services for celebrities wrote a very interesting book, called The Gift of Fear. The people who obsess over and stalk celebrities for any reason should be known to the security team.

Jump to 2:16 to hear him speak
 

Police confiscated several guns in his home and car as well as wooden target boards.

The guns included five-barrelled and nine-barrelled contraptions.





The DIY gun used to kill Japan's Abe was simple to make, analysts say

The man suspected of killing former Japanese premier Shinzo Abe with a hand-made gun on Friday could have made the weapon in a day or two after obtaining readily available materials such as wood and metal pipes, analysts say. There have been some cases in recent years where people illicitly...
news.yahoo.com

 
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