Shinzo Abe's assassin used a handmade firearm

NARA, Japan,  - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving leader of modern Japan, was gunned down on Friday while campaigning for a parliamentary election, shocking a country where guns are tightly controlled and political violence almost unthinkable.

Police said the gunman had admitted to shooting Abe with a handmade firearm he had fashioned out of metal and wood.

Media reported his name as Tetsuya Yamagami. Police said he was a Nara resident who worked at Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Forces for three years but now appeared to be unemployed. They were investigating whether he had acted alone.

Investigators found "several" other handmade guns at his one-room flat in Nara city, police added.