Posted on 07/08/2022 3:39:05 PM PDT by Libloather
**SNIP**
Videos of the shooting circulating online show the gunman approaching Abe from behind before firing two shots, both producing extremely loud cannon-like booms and plumes of white smoke.
Police later said they found multiple homemade guns and explosives when they searched Yamagami’s house, adding that he had allegedly admitted to shooting Abe with a DIY firearm.
From images of the gun, captured by bystanders including a reporter for Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, experts immediately suspected it was homemade. “The box-like device is wrapped in black tape and smoke can be seen coming from the muzzle. It’s certainly no standard shotgun,” a former detective for the Metropolitan Police Department firearms control division told The Daily Beast after reviewing photos.
While stressing it’s too early to be definitive about the precise design of the weapon used to murder Abe, another authority said the gun appeared to have some highly unusual features.
“I think the first interesting observation is that it’s clearly electrically fired,” said N. R. Jenzen-Jones, an arms and munitions intelligence specialist and Director of the U.K.-based Armament Research Services (ARES). “There’s electrical wire passing through each of those end caps that you can see in one of the images. That indicates to me that it’s an electrically-fired firearm.”
“My hunch is that it’s probably a muzzle-loading design,” Jenzen-Jones added. “It’s probably a smooth-bore weapon - by which I mean unrifled, like a shotgun - but again, that’s not a certainty.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
That's not the only weapon that ever used electric primers. They're fairly common in military weaponry, like the M-230 chain gun and GAU-8 cannon.
Left inside pocket for back up gun or cuffs?.
Yes. Black powder.
Very low tech. Charcoal, salt peter and sulfur.
Not clean, not pretty, but functional.
I suspect the electrical firing would have required electrical igniter surrounded by something quick burning. Flammable liquid or match heads. When my kids were small, we shot model rockets. When we did not have factory igniters, I would make one by wrapping very small copper wire around a match head. Stuffed that in the rocket motor and put the juice to it. Worked as well as factory igniters.
looks to me like his security didn’t act fast or well after first shot. Instead of quickly moving to get him covered they turn and look at where the sound came from. He even stays up there and turns to look. Also it almost seems like some behind him duck/flinch just ahead of the shots?
I haven’t watched other video of this, just this one without any sound.
Knowing how anti-gun Japan is, I would be willing to bet that they don’t allow a backup gun, and further you draw your weapon from the armorer at the start of your shift, and turn it (and all ammo) back in at the end of your shift, just like military police do here in the States.
Which leaves handcuffs as the only option.
Maybe I don’t know about their laws but sounds right.
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