Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has been assassinated

[3ngag3]

This is incredibly fucked. Shot in the back with a shotgun. Stuff like this rarely happens in Japan let alone to their political figures.

Edit: He has died from his injuries

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by 3ngag3

[PenguinBoss]

inb4 So MuCh FoR gUn CoNtRoL

[Chapinator_X]

I didn’t expect the guy to pull out a handmade shotgun and get close enough to fire from behind him. 

[Sawdy]

Anyone close to this understand what could have been the motivation? Like, I could understand and assume why this would happen to some political leaders here…

[Insipid]

lawl, my mother just arrived in Japan two days ago. She's the neurotic and superstitious type too, so.

That's all I really have to add. I'm not gonna pretend to know the motivations behind the attack. And although public violence is rarer in Japan, I'm not certain political assassinations actually are that much rarer. And if you go back to the feudal days, they probably were more common than in the West.

Charlie Chaplin was almost assassinated when another Japanese prime minister was a few years before the start of WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_15_Incident

There's also this:

 

[discolé monade]

just links to the youtube page. ^

npr story

[Jman]

3 hours ago, Sawdy said:

Anyone close to this understand what could have been the motivation? Like, I could understand and assume why this would happen to some political leaders here…

Bluntly put, it was a disgruntled constituent.  Said he didn’t like Abe’s position…and decided the best solution was to make a homemade gun.

[Master-Debater131]

2 hours ago, Sawdy said:

Anyone close to this understand what could have been the motivation? Like, I could understand and assume why this would happen to some political leaders here…

Its complicated.

Some fairly broad strokes incoming.

For starters, Japan has a long history of political assassinations. The most famous probably being in the 60s when the PM was killed when an assassin stabbed him with a samurai sword. There have been waves of political violence in the past, with the 60s and 70s being some of the worst decades for political violence.

 

Abe himself is a fairly popular, although controversial, figure. He was the longest serving PM since the end of WW2. He led the LDP party, which is the conservative party in Japan. While leader he pushed some controversial positions including rearming Japan and dropping the pacifist constitution. He worked closely with the US to try and increase military ties and readiness. He saw China as a threat and tried to rally the democracies in the area to recognize that China is an existential threat for more military cooperation. While PM he also visited the Yasakuni shrine which enraged a lot of old wounds because its a war memorial that also includes war criminals from WW2. So while he was pushing for more militarization and cooperation in the area he wasnt exactly trying to heal any old wounds. 

Internally he also led an economic revival in Japan with his "Abenomoics" policy.  That became his trademark for a long time and led to sustained electoral victories for the LDP. His economic policies were fairly popular.

He retired due to health reasons (Colitis) or he would have still been PM.  Even after he retired he remained an extremely influential figure within the LDP and was the leader of the largest faction within the party. He still welded extreme influence on Japanese politics. More recently he openly stated that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Japan should host US Nuclear Weapons on the Japanese mainland. Which, as you can guess, was just a little controversial. Its also widely assumed that we have Nukes there, but we keep it quite for fairly obvious reasons.

As stated above, he worked extremely closely with the US and greatly increased our ties. After Trump won he worked to bring Japanese rail investment to the US as part of Trumps initial infrastructure push. That didnt go to far, but Abe was serious about trying to bring Japanese rail technology and processes to the US. AFAIK that attempt is still ongoing, just with new people involved.

So honestly, take your pick for why this happened.

[Sawdy]

22 minutes ago, Master-Debater131 said:

Its complicated.

Some fairly broad strokes incoming.

For starters, Japan has a long history of political assassinations. The most famous probably being in the 60s when the PM was killed when an assassin stabbed him with a samurai sword. There have been waves of political violence in the past, with the 60s and 70s being some of the worst decades for political violence.

 

Abe himself is a fairly popular, although controversial, figure. He was the longest serving PM since the end of WW2. He led the LDP party, which is the conservative party in Japan. While leader he pushed some controversial positions including rearming Japan and dropping the pacifist constitution. He worked closely with the US to try and increase military ties and readiness. He saw China as a threat and tried to rally the democracies in the area to recognize that China is an existential threat for more military cooperation. While PM he also visited the Yasakuni shrine which enraged a lot of old wounds because its a war memorial that also includes war criminals from WW2. So while he was pushing for more militarization and cooperation in the area he wasnt exactly trying to heal any old wounds. 

Internally he also led an economic revival in Japan with his "Abenomoics" policy.  That became his trademark for a long time and led to sustained electoral victories for the LDP. His economic policies were fairly popular.

He retired due to health reasons (Colitis) or he would have still been PM.  Even after he retired he remained an extremely influential figure within the LDP and was the leader of the largest faction within the party. He still welded extreme influence on Japanese politics. More recently he openly stated that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Japan should host US Nuclear Weapons on the Japanese mainland. Which, as you can guess, was just a little controversial. Its also widely assumed that we have Nukes there, but we keep it quite for fairly obvious reasons.

As stated above, he worked extremely closely with the US and greatly increased our ties. After Trump won he worked to bring Japanese rail investment to the US as part of Trumps initial infrastructure push. That didnt go to far, but Abe was serious about trying to bring Japanese rail technology and processes to the US. AFAIK that attempt is still ongoing, just with new people involved.

So honestly, take your pick for why this happened.

I appreciate your entire response, and I respect you for having the conversation…. 
 

this might be for that rat that follows you tho…

 

[Master-Debater131]

The whole "gun control" thing is so damn stupid.  Japan averages less than 10 gun deaths a year, and the vast majority of those are related to the Yakuza.

Japan is probably the definition of a country where extremely strict gun control has worked.

 

The gun used was clearly homemade. From the looks and sounds of things he used fairly available materials to create an improvised gun, and he used that to assassinate the former PM.

[1pooh4u]

6 hours ago, Sawdy said:

I appreciate your entire response, and I respect you for having the conversation…. 
 

this might be for that rat that follows you tho…

 

We knew they were gonna go there. It’s the dumbest argument.  My answer from now on is gonna be “just get rid of all the laws because people find ways around them” 

[GunStarHero]

17 hours ago, Master-Debater131 said:

 

For starters, Japan has a long history of political assassinations. The most famous probably being in the 60s when the PM was killed when an assassin stabbed him with a samurai sword. There have been waves of political violence in the past, with the 60s and 70s being some of the worst decades for political violence.

 

If you're talking about Inejiro Asanuma, he wasn't the PM; he was the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party. He was killed during a debate on TV when a right wing, nationalist teenager bum rushed the stage and stabbed him to death with a short sword. 

[Master-Debater131]

7 hours ago, GunStarHero said:

If you're talking about Inejiro Asanuma, he wasn't the PM; he was the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party. He was killed during a debate on TV when a right wing, nationalist teenager bum rushed the stage and stabbed him to death with a short sword. 

Yup, your right.  He wasnt the PM at the time.

[Insipid]

Yamagami, the suspect, claimed the Unification Church had caused his mother to go into bankruptcy, and he accused Abe of allowing it to come into Japan. This "church" is more like a Jehovah's Witness cult: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

So there's the actual motive.

[GunStarHero]

2 hours ago, Master-Debater131 said:

Yup, your right.  He wasnt the PM at the time.

You were probably confusing this and the stabbing incident with Abe's grandfather, Kishi, who was PM in 1960, but he was not fatally wounded in the attack. 

[naraku360]

And nothing of value was lost.

[Insipid]

3 hours ago, naraku360 said:

And nothing of value was lost.

Like or dislike Abe, this still was a shocking event for Japanese people. Peace of mind is something valuable that has been lost in a country where gun violence is extraordinarily rare.

[naraku360]

17 hours ago, Insipid said:

Like or dislike Abe, this still was a shocking event for Japanese people. Peace of mind is something valuable that has been lost in a country where gun violence is extraordinarily rare.

Of course.

I just don't want Abe getting sympathy over his death when he was a net negative to the world as a whole.

[Insipid]

1 hour ago, naraku360 said:

Of course.

I just don't want Abe getting sympathy over his death when he was a net negative to the world as a whole.

I mean, I'm quite neutral to Abe myself, but why do you think he was that bad?

[Youtree]

3 hours ago, Insipid said:

I mean, I'm quite neutral to Abe myself, but why do you think he was that bad?

Well Japan’s imperialist roots are still present in the way they cultivate sectors of influence, amongst the hierarchy of elected officials.  So too with Ukraine and any smaller nation with dense urban centers and gritty moral insight.  Look at how the Nissan CEO got smuggled out in a suitcase to avoid prosecution and the ceasure of his ill gains.  This guy had more influence that Akira Toriyama and still had to be flown to Turkey with a musical instrument.  
Yet, I’d say Japan’s sanction power is on par with the United States for the foreseeable.  This man had no connections to organized crime or industry there and about.  He got loced for no reason other than his post-electoral personal life.  The assassin had a homemade pipe weapon!?  That’s a hell of a way to go out for someone as influential as he was.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Youtree

[Insipid]

41 minutes ago, Youtree said:

Well Japan’s imperialist roots are still present in the way they cultivate sectors of influence, amongst the hierarchy of elected officials.  So too with Ukraine and any smaller nation with dense urban centers and gritty moral insight.  Look at how the Nissan CEO got smuggled out in a suitcase to avoid prosecution and the ceasure of his ill gains.  This guy had more influence that Akira Toriyama and still had to be flown to Turkey with a musical instrument.  
I’d say Japan’s sanction power is on par with the United States in the foreseeable future.  This man had no connections to organized crime or industry there and about.  He got loced for no reason other than his post-electoral personal life.  The assassin had a homemade pipe weapon!?  That’s a hell of a way to go out for someone as influential as he was.

mumbo, I clearly had asked for naraku's opinion. What you said was more about Japan's practices than Abe's beliefs anyway. Shit on Japan as much as you want, but what made you dislike him? That's a rhetorical question in this moment btw, as I don't care about what you're about to google and opine about.

[Youtree]

11 minutes ago, Insipid said:

mumbo, I clearly had asked for naraku's opinion. What you said was more about Japan's practices than Abe's beliefs anyway. Shit on Japan as much as you want, but what made you dislike him? That's a rhetorical question in this moment btw, as I don't care about what you're about to google and opine about.

I wasnt sure if you were trying to antagonize Naraku.  I’m not defending their indifference at all sic It’s plain to see that you’d go all psychoanalytical if I did though.  It sucks when you speak your mind and needlessly attract attention.  I think the discussion has a elitist edge to it and you should search yourself to find out if that is true.

[Insipid]

10 minutes ago, Youtree said:

I wasnt sure if you were trying to antagonize Naraku.  I’m not defending their indifference at all sic It’s plain to see that you’d go all psychoanalytical if I did though.  It sucks when you speak your mind and needlessly attract attention.  I think the discussion has a elitist edge to it and you should search yourself to find out if that is true.

Elitist edge? I'm a dual Japanese/American citizen. The former prime minister of my country has been assassinated. I really don't care if you criticize Abe or Japan. I just may or may not decide to respond. That's the nature of a public forum after all.

Edit: I know there are other dynamics at play here, so I don't hold that particular bit of ignorance about me against you. I've been accusing you of being mumbo, but now I'm thinking you're that one guy who was complaining about cliques about a month ago. If that's you, I apologize.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Insipid

[Youtree]

Why apologize?  This place was practically made for me.

[naraku360]

8 hours ago, Insipid said:

I mean, I'm quite neutral to Abe myself, but why do you think he was that bad?

Typical conservative politician stuff. Military expansion and warmongering, corporate tax breaks including attempts at opening a Cayman Isle-esque zone in Japan, potentially falsifying data, upping historical revisionism in schools, anti-immigration, reducing government transparency. Nothing extraordinary, but still GOP-lite.

Edited July 12, 2022 by naraku360

[GunStarHero]

[Insipid]

The suspect supposedly had a very tragic life. His father died when he was young, his brother killed himself, and his mother donated over 1 million US dollars the cultish Unification Church. I guess that's what it takes to commit assassination in a country where gun violence is rare . . .