Shinzo Abe shooting: A country known for safety is stunned

By Gearoid Reidy

News that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot on the campaign trail for Sunday’s upper house elections has brought the country to a standstill.
As I write, the details are unclear. These appear to be the outlines: A lone gunman attacked Abe, whose condition has been described as “grave.” However the circumstances unfold, this is a tragedy that will have repercussions far beyond this weekend’s voting.

It’s hard to think of a more unexpected place for this to happen: Japan prides itself on being a safe society. The impact of sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, nearly 30 years on, still reverberate precisely because such incidents are so rare — shootings in particular. The unsolved 2013 killing of Takayuki Ohigashi, the head of a famous restaurant chain shot outside his company headquarters, still linger in the memory. Political assassinations are even more extraordinary: The yakuza-related fatal shooting of the mayor of Nagasaki in 2007 might be the only recent corollary.

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Random attacks of violence do occur. Recent years have seen an uptick in such events, such as the mass murder of 26 in Osaka last December, where the suspect set a mental health clinic on fire, killing himself in the process; or the knife attacks on Tokyo’s subways last Halloween, which mercifully resulted in no fatalities.

While some guns are available in Japan for the likes of hunters, any purchase requires stringent checks. Photos apparently from the scene show an unusual, almost handmade-looking firearm. Last year, a man killed himself in Ibaraki with a gun believed to have been made with a 3D printer. But because of Japan’s safety record, security at political rallies is weak. It’s not at all unusual to see former prime ministers or other big-wigs campaigning at a street corner or in front of a train station, without a visible detail.

Abe, though, should be different. While outsiders might think of him as a former politician, he maintains immense influence at home. He leads the largest faction in the Liberal Democratic Party, and at just 67, is still in his prime (for a Japanese lawmaker). Many speculated he could take another run at the premiership. Even if he didn’t, Abe was certainly in place to help decide the next prime minister.

At the time of writing, we know little of the suspect and nothing of his motivations. Abe has attracted violent protest in the past, including a 2014 self-immolation against security legislation Abe spear-headed. But this kind of senseless attack on a national figure seems utterly without precedent in the country’s modern history.

But one thing seems certain: July 8 is a day that will scar Japan forever.