Not too many details, many reports saying no vital signs. Someone is in custody
Why? Japan definitely isn’t known for gun violence and he’s not in office. No idea what to think right now.
Mods, I put this in P&E to reach an audience that would find it more relevant and it was at a campaign event.
Thanks for starting it. It will undoubtedly become a political discussion at some point, so it’s good to have an open thread to link to if needed.
This event just leaves me feeling ill.
See also:
Looks like he is almost certainly dead, but no confirmation. He was shot three times at 3 meters range from behind with a shotgun, left chest and neck are reported to have been hit.
Very sorry to hear it. Japan went through a rash of assassinations in both the Thirties (by the right) and the early Fifties (by the left) IIRC; hope this doesn’t mark the start of a new trend.
I admit to being rather ignorant about the current Japanese political scene.
From what I am seeing Abe was the longest serving PM since WW2 and very conservative on several issues. I see reference to him being a “negationist” regarding recent Japanese history, a right-wing nationalist and advocating repeal of the part of the Japanese constitution that prohibits Japan maintaining military forces.
What of the above is correct and is it likely any of these things would figure into why someone would try to kill him?
We can’t assume this had anything to do with Abe’s particular political views. It might just be somebody who wanted to be famous and figured killing somebody famous was a path to that goal.
Gun deaths are incredibly rare in Japan and I’m kind of stunned.
MSN is reporting “no vital signs”. I think he’s dead.
Parliamentary elections are on Sunday and Abe is up for reelection, so I’d say there’s a good chance his politics had something to do with this.
Washington Post says:
Abe was admitted to the Nara Medical University Hospital, and government sources cited in media reports said the former leader was in critical condition.
A shooter has been taken into custody. One source said he was linked to the Yakuza, their organized-crime tribe, for want of a better word.
Correcting myself on this point - Abe is not up for reelection, as he’s in the House of Commons and the House of Councillors (I.e. the Senate) is what the elections are for.
I believe most of those things are true to at least some degree. As far as I know, he never got anywhere on revising the constitution before he left office, and I haven’t heard anything about it since. As for whitewashing history, good luck finding any Japanese politician who doesn’t do that – we’ve had other threads contrasting the way Germany and Japan dealt with their crimes against humanity, once the war was over; still to this day the Japanese people I know don’t face the truth, it is too shameful. Shame is culturally very difficult to endure for Japanese people, but that’s only a reason, not an excuse.
Japan still does have the death penalty, by the way, so if the shooter wanted to be famous, he may not be around to enjoy it for very long.
I’m not a doctor, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but my guess would be that he’s probably on life support and/or undergoing surgery and they’re hoping to keep his brain alive, and it’ll probably be several more hours before they declare him dead if he indeed is beyond saving.
I always think about this when I hear about Mr. Abe.
I love it. Trump is absolutely struggling to keep his cool when he realizes Abe isn’t going to let him pull the tug-of-war shake he usually does to try and intimidate people.
The yakuza probably has better resources than two pipes held together with electrical tape.
True. But the reasons for the attack are yet unclear. Homemade shotgun, and the perp was an ex? military guy its seems.
I did not know that. I though the US and China were two of the only major countries with the death penalty. I now see that Japan, India, Indonesia, and a few countries in Africa and the Middle East have it. Wait…and South Korea? I was really in the dark what developed countries have it still.
I’m using this map:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-death-penalty
I notice it does not include North Korea, though perhaps they claim not to have death penalty. They definitely do, though.
Japan has a pretty long tradition (centuries old) of having a “power behind the throne” with (in modern times) most Prime Ministers serving almost purely as fall guys, elected by the LDP, to distract away from what they’re really working on. Generally, there is an unofficial leader of the party who is directing things from behind the curtain. Abe and, previous to him, Nakasone were both examples of those guys choosing to step out and take full control.
I’m not sure with Abe but my understanding was that Nakasone, after stepping down as PM, still more-or-less lead the party (and thereby the country) for several years. Abe was probably still influential in Japanese policy.
It’s probably more likely that he pissed off some Yakuza boss, somehow, but it’s not impossible that his role as the unofficial leader of Japan is the underlying issue.