Shinzo Abe was Assassinated

Pretty high-profile, any news on a motive?

Source: BBC

Japan is one of the safest places in the world in terms of gun violence.

The reaction of the crowd there is very strange, seems like they didn't realise what had happened, after gunshots fired you would normally expect people to run away.

Not really. Guns are virtually unknown in Japan so genuinely people wouldn't know what was going on, and also culturally the Japanese don't overreact or burst out screaming to traumatic events like you'd see in the US or Europe. Very different cultures lead to very different behaviours.

Echoes of Yamaguchi from way back

Yamaguchi acted against communists in Japan I believe - any word on a motive for Abe's attacker?

Gun Laws in Japan might be strict to the point that it's impossible to own one for the ordinary citizen? In any case this kind of shooting is practically unheard of there.

I thought the same thing but I guess that is the result of being from a nation with almost no gun crime. Compare that to the reaction of the crowd in the recent Chicago 4th July shooting, or even a few years ago when a vehicle backfire caused a panic in Times Sq.

That's just the way they do it. You see politicians, from rural town mayors on up, speaking on the street or an the back of trucks etc. Here we have politicians out jogging with no security. He was not the active Prime Minister and in a country with a disproportionately low violent crime rate. Murder cases are rare and all over the news and followed in great detail

I wouldn’t like to be his security team, utterly hopeless. Several shots fired from where he is statistically most vulnerable.

the uniform cop to the right standing like a mannequin several shots have been fired… looks like he should be stood in the window of a primark.

I know very little about the ins and outs of Japanese politics but from the outside it seems to be a nation going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment. Its heyday is definitely behind it, at one stage in the 80s many were predicting that Japan would be the next superpower, not China. But they've had about 30 years of slow growth and stagnation since their bubble burst in the early 90s, and couple that with the rise of China in their own neck of the woods in the meantime. Their population is also falling rapidly from its peak about 20 years ago.

Abe seems to have been a stable force in their political system (Japanese PMs don't seem to have much staying power) but also showcased a lot of that residual nationalism, especially towards their imperial history in China and elsewhere.

Again it's a gross oversimplification but I wonder if this tragedy together with the serious aggression coming out of China at the moment will have a major effect on Japanese self-confidence. Or how that will play out politically.

Surely the Yazuka (sp?) crime syndicate use guns?

Also to poster above who said a gun wasn't involved, think you may be a little confused. A gun produced by an amateur gunsmith in his garden shed is still a gun, if it works properly and can shoot.

there will always be nutters and people with grudge so keeping the guns out of easy reach, just like the dishwasher tabs out of the babies mouth makes sense also

Guns dont kill people, rappers do!!!

Looks like pipes duct-taped to a plank, there's not really much you can do to stop people making stuff like this. The most interesting improvised firearm I've ever seen was made in a prison in the US and used a box stapler as a trigger/striker mechanism. If someone is determined enough they'll be able to put something together.