Homemade gun used in Abe shooting fuels concerns over DIY weapons and 3D-printed ‘ghost guns’

euronews.com:

The killing of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe using a handmade gun has revived attention around firearms that can be assembled at home from individual parts, kits, or using 3D printers.

Video images showed the assailant fired at Abe on Friday with a device that had a pistol grip and what appeared to be two pipes covered in black electrical tape. Police arrested a 41-year-old man at the scene and said he had admitted to shooting Abe.

The gun measured 40 cm by 20 cm, and was made of materials such as metal and wood, local officials told reporters. Analysts say the suspect could have made the weapon in a day or two after obtaining readily available materials such as wood and metal pipes.

"The making of guns with a 3D printer and the manufacturing of bombs can nowadays be learned off the internet from anywhere in the world," said Mitsuru Fukuda, a Nihon University professor specialised in crisis management and terrorism who analysed images of the weapon used in Abe's shooting.

There have been several cases in recent years of people being arrested for illegally making firearms – typically with the help of 3D printers – not only in Japan but in other developed countries.

Untraceable homemade firearms are increasingly cropping up in deadly shootings across the United States, and the Biden administration pledged earlier this year to crack down on such unlicensed “ghost guns”.

In Europe, where gun control laws are much stricter than in the United States, the threat posed by unlicensed firearms is also a concern. Counter-terrorism experts say more should be done to curb their spread, and recent violent incidents suggest these weapons are of particular appeal to far-right extremists.

On October 9, 2019, in the German city of