Japanese politician and former prime minister Shinzo Abe died today after an attacker shot him at a political campaign event, using what numerous Twitter users have described as a “blunderbuss”.
Images of the weapon a 41-year-old suspect likely used have been circulating online since the shocking incident.
The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted shooting Abe with a homemade gun, the BBC reports. His motive: he had a grudge against a “specific organisation” with which he believed Abe was associated.
But what do we know about Tetsuya Yamagami’s armoury – what is a blunderbuss, the name Twitter users are using to describe the gun he used to shoot Shinzo Abe, and did he have any other guns?
Was the gun used to kill Shinzo Abe actually a ‘blunderbuss’?
Lots of people are calling it a blunderbuss, but there hasn’t actually been official confirmation yet on whether or not the gun is muzzle-loaded.
However, that hasn’t stopped people from speculating about how it worked.
Numerous Twitter users have noted its improvised appearance, the presence of what looks like duct tape on the barrel, and what people are calling ignitor caps on the back of the “barrels”.
So from more photos coming out it does appear the gun that was used to shoot Shinzo Abe was a homemade double barrel shotgun. Incredibly crude but still capable of doing what it did. Pray for Shinzo. pic.twitter.com/HWcNWtTqwv
— Doc Strangelove (@DocStrangelove2) July 8, 2022
What is a ‘blunderbuss’? Shinzo Abe shooter admitted to using a ‘homemade gun’
The BBC reports that the suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted to shooting Shinzo Abe with a “homemade gun”.
He said he had a grudge against a “specific organisation”, the outlet adds, citing local police. But further details are yet to emerge.
A blunderbuss is a type of gun with a short barrel and flared muzzle. You load it from the front, straight into the muzzle – that’s why it’s flared, to facilitate loading.
The blunderbuss is a predecessor to the modern shotgun and is most effective at short range. Its name comes from the Dutch word ‘donderbuis’, meaning “thunder pipe”.
One of the reasons people are continuing to call the weapon a blunderbuss, it seems, is because of how loud it was. “Listen to that thing go off”, one wrote on Twitter following the incident. And in his book The British Army: Its Origin, Progress, and Equipment, historian Sibbald Mike Lier describes the stunningly loud report of the blunderbuss.
So it is perhaps unsurprising the moniker has stuck, at least for now.
Police have confiscated ‘several’ other weapons from Yamagami’s house
Police officers reportedly (via the BBC) told a news conference that they had confiscated “several other handmade weapons similar to those used in the attack” from the suspect’s house.
[UPDATE] Another multi-barrelled firearms confiscated from the Tetsuya Yamagami house. Looks like this one have a 9 barrel stacked together. A rudimentary wooden (?) stock and electrical ignition/trigger. @CalibreObscura@MalcolmNance pic.twitter.com/FEtYa5wLSi
— Elizabeth Vstx (@EVostox) July 8, 2022
They also found explosives.
Abe suffered two bullet wounds to his neck and suffered damage to his heart. In the minutes following the attack, he was conscious and responsive. However, his condition soon deteriorated, and he died in the afternoon, local time.
The suspect was a member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force, the BBC adds in its report, but left active service in 2005. He apparently managed to get very close to the former Japanese PM, despite the number of security guards present.
Twitter shocked at Shinzo Abe assassin’s ‘homemade’ and ‘improvised’ firearm
One user called it a “high school science project”.
When BNO News first reported the incident on Twitter, it wrote that Shinzo Abe had been shot in the back with a “shotgun”, but Twitter users can’t seem to shake calling it a blunderbuss.
Others have since called it an “improvised double-barrelled shotgun”. NBC News also used the descriptor. And “homemade” has come up a lot in descriptions of Tetsuya Yamagami’s unique firearm.
