- Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
- BBC News, Tokio
Updated 3 hours
image source, Getty Images
Since the news of Shinzo Abe’s murder broke on Friday, messages from friends and contacts have not stopped arriving, all asking me the same question: how could this have happened in Japan?
I myself felt something very similar.
Living here you get used to not thinking about violent crimes.
The identity of the victim only makes the news more shocking.
Shinzo Abe may no longer be Japan’s prime minister, but he was still a key figure in Japanese public life and probably the most recognizable Japanese politician of the last three decades.
Who would want to kill Abe? And because?
I am trying to think of an equivalent, another act of political violence that has been equally shocking to the local population. The one that comes to mind is the shooting of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.
image source, Archyde.com
In a photo taken moments before the attack, the suspected gunman can be seen standing behind Abe wearing a gray T-shirt and carrying a black bag.
When I say that people here don’t think about violent crime, I’m not exaggerating..
Yes, there are the Yakuza, Japan’s notorious violent organized crime gangs. But most people never come into contact with them.
And even the Yakuza steer clear of guns because the penalties for illegal possession make them simply not worth having.
Owning a gun in Japan is extremely difficult.
It requires no criminal record, mandatory training, psychological evaluation, and extensive background checks that include police interviews of neighbors.
Consequently, gun crime is practically non-existent.
On average, there are fewer than 10 gun-related deaths in Japan each year. In 2017, there were only three.
image source, Archyde.com
Japanese policemen rarely use guns.
It’s no wonder then that much of the attention has focused on the gunman and the gun he used.
Who is he? Where did you get the gun?
Japanese media report that the 41-year-old is a former member of the country’s self-defense forces, the equivalent of the military.
But closer inspection shows that he only spent three years in the Navy.
The weapon he used is even more curious.
Footage of her lying on the ground after the shooting shows what looks like a homemade gun.
Two pieces of steel tubing taped together with black duct tape, with some kind of hand-made trigger. It looks like something created from plans downloaded from the internet.
So was this a deliberate political attack, or the act of a fantasist, someone who wanted to become famous by shooting someone famous?
So far, what the authorities have said is that the attacker had some kind of grudge against the former president.
image source, Archyde.com
The news has shocked a country that prides itself on citizen security.
Japan has certainly had its share of political assassinations.
The most famous was in 1960, when Japan’s Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma was stabbed in the abdomen by a right-wing fanatic wielding a samurai sword.
Although right-wing extremists still exist in Japan, Abe, a right-wing nationalist, would be an unlikely target.
In recent years, we have seen another type of crime become more common. That of the reserved and lonely man who keeps a deep record against someone or something.
image source, Getty Images
In 2019, one set fire to a building housing a popular animation studio in Kyoto, killing 36 people.
He told police that he resented the studio because it “stole his job.”
In another case in 2008, a disgruntled young man drove a truck into a crowd of shoppers in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, then got out and started stabbing people. Seven people died.
Before carrying out the attack, he had posted a message online saying, “I will kill people in Akihabara” and “I don’t have a single friend, I am ignored because I am ugly. I am inferior to trash.”
It’s not yet clear whether Abe’s shooting falls into the first or second category.
But probably the murder will change Japan.
Given how safe it is the countrythes protection measures are very relaxed.
During election campaigns, like the current one, politicians literally stand on street corners giving speeches and shaking hands with shoppers and passers-by without the protection of bodyguards.
That explains why an attacker like Abe’s was able to get close enough to fire such a basic weapon with such precision.
Something that will surely change from now on.
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