Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, was assassinated with a pistol in the streets of Nara, Japan, and the assassination shocked the world, especially as it took place in a country with strict gun laws and tight control over ammunition, and it appears that the killer used a homemade pistol to carry out the attack.

The description of Japanese officials, journalists and firearms experts refers to the gun used to kill Abe as "homemade", and usually this phrase means that the weapon is "3D-printed".

But was the weapon used to kill the former prime minister 3D-printed?

A report by Motherboard says that pictures of the weapon show a primitive package wrapped in black tape, and it appears that it consists of two pieces in the form of two tubes of wood affixed with black tape, and the electronic components appear below these two tubes.

The weapon appears to be a classic homemade pistol or a “compact pistol” made using basic materials available to almost anyone. Many of them have this hobby on YouTube.

Local pistol and primitive ammunition

Some of these weapons are elaborate and use machined parts, others are as primitive as sliding two tubes together to fire a shotgun shell, and at the end of the tube a small firing pin and another tube with ammunition.

The tube in which the projectile is located slides down and brings the bullet into the firing pin, which fires the firearm.

"It's a little more complicated than a rudimentary rifle, as it basically had to make a tube with one open end and at the other end something like a metal ingot or ball to act as ammunition," weapons researcher Caliber Obscura told Motherboard.

He added, "The electrical circuit will be used to supply the ingot with gunpowder to be fired, which is like pipe bombs."

The electronic components in the weapon indicate that there is an electric firing mechanism that takes a little longer to fire a projectile than using a regular bullet, and this may be due to Japan's restrictive laws on weapons, so the killer used homemade ammunition in addition to a homemade pistol.

This is very likely to be a classic 'if you can't get it, make it yourself' scenario—a primary driver of craft-produced firearms acquisition.

— NR Jenzen-Jones (@RogueAdventurer) July 8, 2022

Based on preliminary analysis by firearms experts, the weapon that killed Abe appears to be an older model with some modern technology.

It appears as if a nozzle was loaded with a metal object and fired with a small electric charge;

"He thought of a killer rifle that used electricity to ignite the firing mechanism instead of the fuse."

In Japan, owning a gun requires a set of basic checks, interviews with family members, and a doctor's permit.

Prospective gun owners are required to pass a firearms safety test and purchase a special gun safe, and the sale of ammunition is tightly controlled, making it difficult to obtain bullets and shells of all kinds.

The large amount of smoke that appeared in the video after the weapon was fired indicates a homemade munition;

“The protrusion at the rear of the tube indicates the design of the barrel of the weapon using a separate propellant and projectile.”

"Of course, it is too early to judge the final composition of the weapon," firearms expert Jenzen Jones said in a tweet.

He later added, "It appears that this is a handmade firearm, and its firing is with an electric charge, and the barrel of the weapon is loaded with gunpowder to launch the projectile."

Japanese police raided the killer's home and confiscated explosives, as well as another homemade weapon. Pictures of the body show a tangle of wood, electronics and nine tubes tied together with black duct tape.

"We repeat, it is still too early to say which of these technologies was used in the pistol, these are just my initial impressions," Jenzen-Jones said on Twitter.