On July 8, 2022, the former prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated by a lone wolf assailant, Tetsuya Yamagami, with an improvised dual barrel gun (sometimes referred to as a Zip Gun.) The weapon appears to have been constructed from very simple, available materials with electric initiation. Instructional manuals and tutorials for the preparation of this kind of weapon are very common and available online. The assassination triggered interest and curiosity on various online platforms. As a result, instructions for producing a similar weapon were published on these platforms. Former PM Abe’s assassination indicates motivated lone wolves are capable of producing lethal weapons with ease by using readily available online manuals and tutorials to successfully kill high value and protected targets. The immediate interest on social media platforms for manufacturing similar weapons right after the attack and the subsequent sharing of older manuals and new tutorials increase concerns of copy-cats and inspired similar attacks.
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