Shinzo’s shooter watched YouTube videos on how to make firearms

CHENNAI: As investigations into the murder of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intensify, local media on Monday revealed the suspect behind the killing, checked YouTube while he prepared the firearm used in the attack.

Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old resident of Nara City, in western Japan shot Shinzo Abe while he was delivering a campaign speech on Friday. The gunman who is now in custody, said he tested a homemade gun at a facility connected to a religious group he harboured a grudge against, the local media reported.

The attack on Japan’s former PM comes as a surprise because getting hold of a weapon for a civilian is a herculean task and considered a taboo for the pacifist Japanese population. A gun totting assassin on a shooting spree is a rarity in Japan as the country’s strict gun laws since the end of World War II make it almost impossible for a citizen to possess a lethal firearm.

During searches at Yamagami's home following Abe's assassination, the police found items that are believed to be explosives and multiple homemade guns.

The gun Yamagami made to shoot Abe was "designed to fire six projectiles at a time," sources said. The weapon was composed of two metal pipes held together with tape and employing projectiles placed in small plastic shells fired from both barrels. It was similar to a shotgun, according to reports.

The sources also said that multiple wooden boards, measuring around 1 square meter each, with holes apparently made during weapon testing were found in the shooter’s car. The shooter had attempted to make a bomb and he appears to have gone through a process of trial and error to produce such a device, as per the reports given by local media.

Nara prefectural police said it appears that the suspect checked YouTube ahead of the attack in repeated attempts to make firearms. Despite YouTube’s firearms policy, there are still dangerous contents in the video-blogging platform. And YouTube may now be prone to have inappropriate and dangerous contents, which may ascertain violence in several ways.

According to YouTube’s firearms policy, content intended to sell firearms, instruct viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories, or instruct viewers on how to install those accessories is not allowed on YouTube.