Tetsuya Yamagami
Tetsuya Yamagami is a Japanese man who fatally shot former prime minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign speech in Nara on July 8, 2022.
Assassination of Shinzo Abe: The July 8, 2022, killing of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign speech in Nara. Yamagami carried out this attack, which became the defining event in his public history.
Unification Church: A religious movement founded in South Korea by Sun Myung Moon in 1954. Yamagami said resentment toward the church, which he blamed for his family’s hardship, motivated his attack.
Improvised firearm: A firearm assembled or substantially modified outside standard commercial manufacture. Yamagami used a homemade weapon rather than a conventional commercially produced gun.
Sun Myung Moon: A South Korean religious leader who founded the Unification Church in 1954. Yamagami’s stated grievance centered on his mother’s involvement with Moon’s church.
Political assassination: The deliberate killing of a political figure for political or ideological purposes. Yamagami’s attack is treated as a political assassination, though his stated grievance was personal and religiously focused.
Shinzo Abe: A Japanese politician who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020. Abe was the former prime minister Yamagami fatally shot.
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification: The current name of the religious organization commonly known as the Unification Church. Public scrutiny of the organization intensified after Yamagami’s stated motive drew attention to his family’s donations.
Homemade firearm: A firearm built by an individual outside a licensed industrial manufacturing process. The weapon used in the attack was a homemade, multiple-barrel device.
Nobuo Kishi: A Japanese politician and former defense minister, and Shinzo Abe’s younger brother. Kishi’s public comments addressed the Abe family’s reported connection to the Unification Church.
Gun politics in Japan: Public debate and policy concerning firearms, ownership, and regulation in Japan. The attack challenged assumptions about political violence in a country with very low gun violence.