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Comment by sergiotapia | Hacker News Reader

Politically: what motives would the shooter have? I don't follow Japanese politics closely.

There is a lot of unspoken of politicial struggles that go on in Japan, take this one for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanrizuka_Struggle. It's not just a totally peaceful place as many believe.

Also, people are economically in a pretty bad place here, borders are still closed with no sign of opening. It might be a long shot but Abenomics was all about making Japan a "service economy", that relied heavily on tourism. No tourists, no money. Maybe a link there? Maybe Yakuza? Maybe the guy was just totally crazy and had trouble getting mental health assistance (which is also hard to get in Japan).

Japan is basically a one party state, it's advertised as a democracy but it's not really. I guess people feel desperate and there's no sign of any healthy change on the horizon. I guess that might be part of it too.

Shinzo Abe was a leader of the LDP which is the dominate party with no sign of that changing within the next few decades. It could feel oppressive for people.

Condolences to his family and friends.

Guns are completely illegal there. Like you could point one at the average cop and it's so unthinkable that you'd have a real one they'd assume it was a toy.

I think you might be onto something with the Yakuza, could be foreign activity as well.

Says elsewhere it was a hunting shotgun, which isn't impossible to own.

It was not

No, seems to be a homemade gun and possibly ammo too.

People can and do possess guns, you just need A very good reason to have one.

No, it's not completely illegal, although it's heavily regulated. You can have a shotgun or an air gun with an approval and periodic check up from authority. And the suspect is known to use a shotgun for this crime.

I don't think you can carry in open though, those are meant for hunting use. I don't know the details, but for example in finland, gun license only allows you to carry a specific gun in specific places and at specific times, you need license for each gun and for each purpose.

I had never heard of the Sanrizuka Struggle. It feels crazy and sad to learn that the airport I arrived at for my move to Japan was on land to be used without consent of the local residents... And I had absolutely no idea of it. Thank you.

Some people held out and still have homes with a dedicated tunnel right in the middle of the runways. Some people I know recently arranged with an owner to rent their place and organized a small techno party there.

https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Narita-A...

https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=JhYm1oXBN2Y

Narita is pretty much why all sizable international airports in Japan since then have either been converted from military bases or built in the sea on artificial islands, because neither involves land appropriation. And Narita still has a farm that wasn't appropriated in the middle of it. https://i.redd.it/zrftut6xrws31.jpg

What's interesting is that flights are actually now relocating back from Narita to Haneda, which was over capacity at the time, but Haneda has since added more capacity.

Haneda has added capacity by massive reclamation of land, allowing it to build new runways.

Was the expansion as helpful they seemed to need Narita for? Could it have been done in the 1960's? If yes on both counts, it really gets the noggin joggin'. Maybe a pretense for stomping on the anti-government folks in Narita was the original motivation.

For context, regional elections are coming this week-end (one of the reason he was touring around to support his party)

Removing this, apologies, was in bad taste given the circumstances.

It’s aways complicated to look back at economic policies and come out with simple summaries, but the picture is in my opinion a tad darker than described. He was a pretty polarizing figure and “Abenomics” is used more as a cynically jab than praise in most public interventions we hear.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abenomics#Results

Any economics policy will have winners and losers.

His gov. was investigated for cooking the books on GDP, but even leaving that aside growth has been mostly flat [0] under his helm, while only stopping the previously rising wealth inequalities [1]

So yes, he basically froze who would be the winners and losers for the span of his policy, and low income people didn't feel great about it.

I have my gripes yet still think he was a more decent PM than many previous ones. It's really sad it comes down to an assassination in the end.

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp-growth [1] https://wid.world/country/japan/

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