With two shots from a homemade firearm, a disturbed individual cut down Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, as he campaigned for his political party ahead of parliamentary elections. During his second and longest stint as prime minister, from 2012 to 2020, Abe was a forceful world figure, taking up a regional trade deal when the Trump administration withdrew and working to resurrect Japan’s military after it was all but abolished after World War II.
He made serious mistakes, including a stubborn refusal to accept the totality of Japan’s responsibility for war crimes committed in the first half of the 20th century. But on the long, positive side of the ledger, he managed to jump-start Japan’s stalled economy and cultivated close relationships with many world leaders. Up until the day of his death, he exerted huge political influence in his country.
Now, he joins the very small group of people felled by firearms in Japan. Despite having more than a third the population of the United States, gun deaths there routinely top out at under 10 per year. Not per day, not per week — per year. Controlling for population, there are on average more than 4,000 times as many annual gun deaths in the United States than in Japan.
