I disagree! Reuters says "Media reports say the shooting suspect told police he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him" This totally makes sense. No accusations of pizza molestation. And it seems like it was a homemade gun. That's the kind of high bar I want my assassins to clear. This seems like a straightforward glass half full situation.

he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that will establish self-defense.

The NYT quoting a woman on the street:
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"I'm shocked by this," she said. "The shooting part is confusing. There are guns? In Japan?"
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The "gun" is so homemade they initially called it a gun like device, there were big puffs of white smoke and the crowd didn't understand that he was shot.

I hope nobody on his security team or the medical team commits suicide.

Police said at a press conference Yamagami had said he had a grudge against what was described as a specific organisation he believed Abe to be a part of, but officers could not say whether the organisation actually existed.

I'm not sure a high-profile political assassination is exactly the thing the world needs right now.

A moment for a particularly mockable moment: Jenna Ellis tweeted Abe "was an outspoken leader for freedom and opposed the Regime."

OK, anyway. I speculate this is a right-winger because of police's reluctance to name them, although that might be overbayesianed by my knowledge of US police ideology. Maybe QAnon? They do exist in Japan, confusingly enough.

It seems like there was such a cover-up instinct in the Japanese press that it leaked through to English-language outlets saying for a while that Abe "collapsed" after "gunshots were heard".

A little odd that it's a former prime minister, although he was epochal in his own way.

And yes, Abe was himself pretty right-wing, but that's how extremists do sometimes.

I'm damn sure it's the last thing the world needs now. I wouldn't even favour taking out Putin. It may be a blessing in disguise that it happened in Japan, whose internal political shenanigans have little impact on most of the rest of the world, but it's still a Bad Thing and makes everything worse everywhere. Initial reports suggest that the shooter is a delusional nut job, but that doesn't help, because there are plenty of those in other countries.

1: Police officials said he used a homemade gun and confessed that he had intended to kill Mr. Abe because he believed the former prime minister to have some association with a group against which Mr. Yamagumi held "a grudge."

Sounds kind of crazy to me! If this wasn't Japan I would assume the group referred to is Jews. Since it is Japan, I still think it's probably Jews.

Since the first one, have any national leaders named "Abe" died a natural death?

9: By the first one, are you referring to Abraham, father of Isaac and Ishmael, that died a natural death at the age of 175?

Yes. We learned about him in school.

From a different Post story.

[Japan] had one shooting death in 2021 -- a smaller number than the United States sees every half-hour

To be fair, Japan has less than half our population, so it's really comparable to what the U.S. sees every hour.

I don't think even Japanese police are uncertain whether Jews exist. The Elders of Zion, that would work for.

I wonder if Korean Talmud chic has rubbed off at all.

Somehow it's especially dissonant that this happened in Nara, city of gentle and annoyingly tame deer.

This seems very bad and I do not want to learn that the assassin harbored delusions about WWII or North Korea, though if I had to bet I'd put money there.

15: One of the few things we know is the assassin was from Nara - went to high school there, was living there more recently.

More news: Yamagami's grudge seemed to have been related to the Unification Church, and specifically to his mother, a member, giving them a bankruptingly large donation years ago. Abe he perceived to be promoting them.

You can't shoot your mother, because it's unseemly after all the effort gestating you.