Attack on former Japan PM stuns nation known for gun control

By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — News that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been shot in broad daylight has shocked not only Japan but the entire world, which has come to associate the relatively low-crime nation with strict gun control. Police say that Japan, with a population of 125 million, had just 10 gun-related criminal cases last year, resulting in one death and four injuries. Most Japanese go through life without ever handling, or even seeing, a real-life gun. Stabbings are more common as a fatal crime. The debate over the right to bear arms has been a distant issue here for decades.