‘Culturally Unfathomable’

Joe Loudon • COMBAT Communications Administrator

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

The assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022 sent shockwaves around the world.

The former Japanese prime minister was speaking at a campaign rally in the city of Nara, about 300 miles south of Tokyo, when the first shot rang out. It missed. The second struck Abe in the neck and chest. Five hours after being air-lifted to a hospital, he died. Doctors administered more than 100 units of blood but were unable to stop the hemorrhaging from a severed artery.

In the wake of the tragic events in Nara, CNN interviewed an American with intimate knowledge of Japan. Nancy Snow, an adjunct fellow at Temple University’s international campus in Tokyo, called the assassination "culturally unfathomable."

» Japan's Strict Gun Laws Make Shootings Rare
CNN • July 8, 2022

Just One Firearm Homicide In 2021

Any shooting in Japan is shocking. Only one firearm homicide had occurred in the country of more than 125 million people the year before, according to the Japanese National Police Agency's 2021 crime stats. (Japan's firearm homicide rate in 2021 was 0.0048 or zero, 0.00, if only rounded to the nearest hundredth.)

Iain Overton, a British investigative journalist and the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a London-based research organization, described Abe’s killing as "almost incomprehensible." In a blog posted within hours of the assassination, he observed, "With its long tradition of gun control measures and low homicide by firearm rates, this shooting will not only rock Japan because of the high profile of the victim, but also because of the rarity of the event."

» Assassination Shocks Japan, Where Gun Control Is Strict And Shootings Are Rare
National Public Radio • July 8, 2022

The Japanese, being so unaccustomed to gun violence, were almost certainly going to be traumatized by the very public murder of a national leader, Snow told CNN.

Added Snow, who is also Strategic Communications Director at the International Security Industry Council of Japan, "The Japanese people can’t imagine having a gun culture like we have in the United States."

STOPPED TOO LATE — A newspaper shows a security officer tackling the assassin, who dropped his crude gun after firing the fatal shot.

A Homemade Gun

Japan’s restrictive laws prohibit private citizens from owning handguns. Only after attending a day-long class, passing a written examine and demonstrating 95% proficiency on a shooting range can individuals in Japan—mostly hunters and target shooters—acquire a license allowing them to purchase shotguns or air rifles.

Abe's assassin used a homemade gun with materials readily available at just about any hardware store. He taped two pipes to a wood plank and "loaded" each with a pellet-filled capsule. Wires from a battery ran through the plastic triggering mechanism to two pipes.

Delayed Response

Standing only a few feet behind Abe, the assassin aimed his crude weapon and squeezed one of two triggers. This first blast from the makeshift saw-offed, double-barreled shotgun prompted Abe to turn around. He collapsed when a pellet, possibly two, from the second pipe struck him.

Security guards later explained the "gunshots" sounded little like a conventional firearm being discharged. This might have delayed their initial response as 2.5 seconds elapsed between the first round and fatal second one being fired.

Yasuhiro Sasaki, president of a Tokyo-based security company, blamed complacency among Abe's bodyguards for not only failing to swiftly step in to protect him but for also allowing a suspicious person to approach him.

"Japanese are so used to leading peaceful lives," Sasaki told the Associated Press, "the security guards were caught asleep."

» Abe's Killing Hants Japan With Questions On Homemade Guns
Associated Press · July 10, 2022

Not Letting Security Come Between Leaders & The People

Election campaigns in his country differ significantly from those in the United States, explained Itabashi Isao, chief analyst at the Council for Public Policy, the agency tasked with assessing security risks in Japan. Political leaders are encouraged—like Abe was doing July 8, 2022—to often speak to small gatherings on streets that haven't been completely sealed off hours in advance by a large security detail.

In Japan, Itabashi told the AP, "The presumption... is that people are not armed."

Seeing the man he'd served as a senior advisor being killed was "unbelievable" for Akihisa Shiozaki.

Hours after former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot July 8, 2022, assassination videos began to proliferate social media. The country's newspapers printed photos of the mortally wounded Abe on their front pages.

"These are shocking images," Shizoaki told CNN, "things that we don't really see in Japan."

Unaccustomed to any gun violence, the Japanese could not really escape bearing witness to the shooting death of a national leader in broad daylight. Abe remained popular after stepping down as Japan's longest-serving prime minister in 2020 due to health concern. Still a member of the country's House of Representatives, he was campaigning on behalf of his political party prior a legislative election.

That election were held on schedule two days after the murder and election-day interviews conducted with Japanese citizens reflected their shock—but also their resiliency and belief theirs was still a very safe society.

"I've never experienced a situation so dangerous I needed a gun to defend myself," one man said.

Describing how many of her friends went out the night of the assassination without giving their own safety "a second thought," a young woman noted, "The fact that our daily lives remain the same despite such a major incident is a sign of peace and an indication that we can take peace for granted."

Later, she added, "I think the basic everyday assumption of possible life-threatening danger is different in Japan than the U.S."

Yet, she also had concerns that violence—like Abe''s assassination—might become more common: "We've been seeing more crimes committed by people dissatisfied with society, using murder as a means to raise their voice. I think this might be our wake-up call to stop taking peace for granted."

“I think the basic everyday assumption of possible life-threatening danger is different in Japan than the U.S.”

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