Shinzo Abe murder: Curious case of Tetsuya Yamagami's homemade gun; what materials were used, how much time it took?

Tokyo: Shinzo Abe was murdered on Friday by a man who beleived that the ex-prime minister of Japan had promoted a religious group that his mother went bankrupt donating to. The accused was identified as Tetsuya Yamagami. He was unemployed and a recluse. His neighbours said he would not respond even when spoken to. "My mother got wrapped up in a religious group and I resented it," he told the media. The most astonishing part of the assasination is that he created the gun used for the murder in his house. He ordered the parts online and assembled the gun using electrical tape.

Experts said the man could have made the weapon within days. He obtained material such as wood and metal pipes to assemble the weapon. The incident is shocking as gun crime in Japan is very rare -- only 10 took place last year. In Japan's gun crimes, only one person died last year while four sustained injuries. The incident shows that guns and bombs can be made and obtained off the internet within days.   

Mitsuru Fukuda, a Nihon University professor who specialises in crisis management and terrorism, told Reuters that guns can be easily made with a 3D printer and the manufacturing of bombs can be learned within days on the internet. He said the gun could have been made in two-three days using pipes.

Tetsuya Yamagami's gun had a pistol grip and two pipes covered in black tape. The gun measured 40 by 20 centimetres (15.7 by 7.9 inches), and was made of materials such as metal and wood. The accused had ordered gun powder on the internet as well. It isn't clear as of now how he obtained the bullets. The accused had made guns with three, five and six metal pipes. Firearms commentator Tetsuya Tsuda told the agency that it could have taken half a day to manufacture the gun used in the crime.

NR Jenzen-Jones, an arms and munitions intelligence specialist of the Australia-based Armament Research Services, said such weapons are crude but lethal. The images of the firearm showed that an electrical wire passed through the cap on the end of each pipe. That pointed to the use of an electric firing mechanism. He said since conventional cartridges are very hard to obtain in Japan, the electric initiation method was used.

This is not the first time criminals in Japan have tried to manufacture their own guns. In 2018, a 23-year-old man in Himeji was arrested for making a gun and 130 bullets. A 19-year-old man in Nagoya was detained for 3D-printing a gun. In 2014, police arrested a 27-year-old man for illegally possessing handguns made by a 3D printer in Kawasaki.

With inputs from Reuters