Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died age 67 after being shot twice by an attacker using a homemade shotgun during a speech on Friday in Nara, Japan.
Doctors at Nara Medical University said in a news conference that a bullet reached his heart. Police have arrested a man in his 40’s in connection with the shooting and retrieved his homemade weapon.
Abe was the longest-serving Japanese Prime Minister in history. He stepped down as leader in 2020, citing health reasons.
Japan has very strict gun laws under Japan’s firearms laws, the only guns permitted for sale are shotguns and air rifles. In Japan handguns are outlawed. Obtaining a firearm in Japan is a long and complicated process that requires a lot of effort and patience to complete.
To qualify for a firearm license, potential buyers must attend an all-day class, pass a written test and a shooting-range test with an accuracy of at least 95%. Then there is a mental health evaluation and drug tests, as well as a rigorous background check which includes a review of their criminal record, personal debt, involvement in organized crime and relationships with family and friends.
After obtaining a gun, the owner must register their weapon with police and provide details of where their gun and ammunition is stored, in separate, locked compartments. The gun must be inspected by the police once a year, and gun owners must retake the class and sit an exam every three years to renew their license.
The restrictions have kept the number of private gun owners in Japan extremely low. In 2017, only an estimated 377,000 guns were held by civilians in Japan, in a country of 125 million people. That was 0.25 guns per 100 people, compared to about 120 guns per 100 people in the US, according to the Small Arms Survey, a project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.
All these laws did nothing to protect against the reality of life which is that the laws of physics doesn’t stop existing when you pass a gun law. Anybody can still easily make a weapon at home and pretty soon will be 3D printing them at home.
