

To qualify for a firearm license, potential buyers must attend an all-day class, pass a written test and a shooting-range test with an accuracy of at least 95%.
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However, NHK reported Friday that Aoki had a license since 2015 to possess four hunting rifles, including shotguns and air guns.Īccording to the government, hunters and target shooters may own shotguns and airguns under “strictly circumscribed conditions.” Gun ownership is rare in Japan, where strict gun laws make it almost impossible to obtain a rifle.

Koyama said Aoki lived with his parents and his aunt, and that Aoki’s 57-year-old mother and 60-year-old aunt escaped the family home and were rescued by police. Suspect arrested after shooting and stabbing attack in Japan leaves four dead ( The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images ) Naoto Suzuki/AP The local police told us one female was stabbed in the back and she was confirmed dead and three other people including police officers were injured. He said the suspect then shot and killed two police officers with what looked like a hunting rifle before barricading himself inside a home belonging to Nakano City Council Chairman Masamichi Aoki, thought to be his father.Ī photo shows a house where a suspect has barricaded himself with a hunting gun in Nakano City, Nagano Prefecture on May 25, 2023. Koyama told reporters Friday the suspect stabbed a woman and then a man. In a statement posted to social media, Nakano officials urged citizens to stay indoors, while authorities designated an “evacuation zone” with a radius of 300 meters around the scene of the incident.Ībout 60 people were evacuated to a middle school gymnasium, where local officials were providing shelter, blankets, food, and drinks. Police were called to the scene late Thursday afternoon with reports that a man had stabbed a woman with a 30-centimeter long “survival” knife, according to Koyama.Īs the drama unfolded, a witness to the attack told Japanese broadcaster NHK that he saw a woman run toward him, pleading for help while being pursued by a masked man in camouflage. In 2018, only nine deaths were reported from firearms – compared with 39,740 the same year in the United States, according to data compiled by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney. It has one of the world’s lowest rates of gun crimes due to its extremely strict gun control laws. Koyama said the incident had caused “great anxiety” in Japan, a country of 125 million where gun violence is extremely rare.
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And on Friday, a 70-year-old woman found outside the house where the suspect had barricaded himself in was pronounced dead, police said.Ībout 100 investigators are working “to clarify the full extent of this extremely heinous incident,” Nagano police chief Iwao Koyama told reporters Friday.

Two other people died Thursday, a woman in her 40s and another police officer age 46. Masanori Aoki, a 31-year-old farmer, was arrested on suspicion of killing a 61-year-old police officer by shooting him in the chest with what appeared to be a hunting rifle, police in Nakano, a city in the country’s Nagano prefecture, told CNN. The son of a local Japanese government official is in police custody after allegedly going on a shooting and stabbing rampage in the central city of Nakano on Thursday, a rare crime in a country with tough gun laws and a low murder rate.
