Abe’s Assassination Stuns a Nation Unfamiliar With Gun Violence
Japan’s strict firearms laws have kept shootings, especially political ones, incredibly rare. Shinzo Abe’s death will reverberate for years.
RIP, Shinzo Abe.
Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an assonant assemblage of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.
The death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, assassinated at the age of 67 by a lone gunman at a campaign event on Friday, is all the more shocking because of the rarity of such violence in a country where firearms sales are strictly controlled. “This kind of attack on a national figure of his stature is utterly without precedent in the country’s modern history,” writes Gearoid Reidy. Unfortunately, the scarcity of these kinds of assaults means security at political rallies is often nonexistent.