Yeah, they don’t know what politics foreigners have. Nor do they care.
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I wonder how he got the ammunition? Wouldn’t that be about as tightly regulated as the guns there? I guess the investigation will reveal that eventually.
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Zip gun. It’s not too difficult to find matchheads, ball bearings or even pachinko balls over there. Stuff that can be found in a poorly watched prison in the states shouldn’t be too difficult to find on amazon or alibaba in japan.
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The BBC liveblog says that Chinese netizens were gloating, at least before his death was announced. Those comments would have been deleted promptly if the Chinese government gave the order.
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During his tenure, Abe made a few very controversial pilgrimages to Yasukuni Shrine, which is infamous for housing shrines to war criminals.
This plus increased tension over the islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, plus Abe’s efforts to remilitarize Japan, made him very unpopular in China.
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Looks like the assassin used an crude electronic ignition system. Possibly scooter/moped spark plugs hooked up to chonky batteries you see used in hobbyist flashlights or small power tools that look like this
Airsoft is huge over there so it wouldn’t be too difficult to find parts that couldn’t be found at a hardware store.
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Another one of the weapons from his residence (as spotted on yahoo japan)
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One of the really sad details is that Shinzo Abe’s wife, Akie, arrived at the hospital at 4:55pm, just eight minutes before her husband died.
She had rushed to Nara by bullet train and express train with a large security detail in tow.
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They’re nihilists, so… no?
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It took about 45 minutes between the shooting and the arrival at the hospital as well. At the presser, the media pressed the doctors about what could have been done to save him, and their reply was more or less that this kind of thing is not really survivable.
There’s a video from the scene of a man crouched over Abe shouting, “Are there any doctors here? We need a doctor right away. Call an ambulance!” There was not much that could have been done, but they had a team of 20 doctors working on him and they brought in blood for transfusion.
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Before he died, or before he was pronounced dead? I suspect there’s a difference, and I wonder if it’s no coincidence that the time of death was officially after Ms. Abe arrived.
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I’m not a doctor, but he probably would have been declared dead hours earlier if he were not who he was. Sometimes the official time of death is just when the doctors realize that there really is nothing that they can do.
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I can’t wait for the pro-gun PSA featuring Tom Selleck and an array of kaiju
So far my bet is on “weirdo hikikomori Travis Bickle wannabe” rather than any particular political motive. The USA doesn’t have a monopoly on those types.
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I’m guessing that this was not part of the revival of Japanese bellicosity Abe was looking for.
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The video in the original post shows the discarded improvised shotgun. It was a double barrel homemade weapon assembled from parts you can find at a hardware store. ETA - doh, shoulda scrolled down, NVM.
So what was this former PMs positions made him so unpopular? I know there are Nationalist factions in Japan.
What, because he made the gun and ammo himself? Homemade firearms aren’t rocket surgery, especially if all you need is a close range shot. You just have to not be a complete idiot, which fortunately rules out most right-wingers.
Not any more.
