Terror attack on New Zealand mosques
A terrorist mass murderer went on a shooting spree in two New Zealand mosques, killing 49 people. He left a lengthy manifesto, and even livestreamed the attack.
This event is extremely terrible in human terms. But in terms of firearms policy, a person’s reaction will almost certainly depend on that person’s pre-existing opinions about gun ownership and gun control. Since I am a strong proponent of the right to bear arms, my reaction is to ask why these worshipers were unarmed sitting ducks (as I assume they were, although I haven’t seen many reports that go into any details on that). New Zealand has a significantly lower percentage of gun-owning households than the US (see this vs. this). I don’t know whether the mosques were “gun-free zones” and haven’t located that information yet, but in the US the majority of mass shootings have tended to occur in places where people are less likely to be armed or are even prohibited from carrying arms.
The MSM (such as the article I linked at the beginning of this post) calls the perpetrator (can we dispense with “alleged,” because he left a manifesto and filmed himself?) “right-wing.” It seems from the evidence that his actual beliefs were a garbled pastiche that defies such easy characterization, but that won’t stop the MSM and those who want to blame the right.
What were the perp’s actual stated beliefs? One would do well to heed the advice in this article:
Early Friday, a number of unverified social-media posts surfaced, along with a bizarre manifesto posted to 8chan, rich with irony and references to memes.
Together, the posts suggest that every aspect of the shootings was designed to gain maximum attention online, in part by baiting the media. The shooter live-streamed the attack itself on Facebook, and the video was quickly shared across YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Before committing the act, he shouted, “Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie,” a reference to Felix Kjellberg, who runs YouTube’s most subscribed-to channel. The phrase itself is a meme started by PewDiePie’s fans, and its goal is to be reprinted…
Significant portions of the manifesto appear to be an elaborate troll, written to prey on the mainstream media’s worst tendencies. As the journalist Robert Evans noted, “This manifesto is a trap … laid for journalists searching for the meaning behind this horrific crime. There is truth in there, and valuable clues to the shooter’s radicalization, but it is buried beneath a great deal of, for lack of a better word, ‘shitposting.’”
Shitposting is a slang term used to describe the act of posting trollish and usually ironic content designed to derail a conversation or elicit a strong reaction from people who aren’t in on the joke…
The shooter also credits the far-right personality Candace Owens with helping to “push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness.” Though the shooter could be a genuine fan of Owens, who has been known to espouse right-leaning views on immigration and gun control, this reference might be meant to incite Owens’s critics to blame her.
That doesn’t mean the racism expressed throughout the 74-page manifesto isn’t genuine. But the complexities of the crime are still unfolding, and as the New York Times journalist Kevin Roose cautioned, “The NZ shooter’s apparent manifesto is thick with irony and meta-text and very easy to misinterpret.”
That’s—interesting, particularly coming from The Atlantic and The New York Times. My feeling is that they’re onto something. Among other things, this shooter wanted to create a stir, and he certainly got what he wanted.
And much of the MSM is certainly making the most of it so far. But here’s another surprisingly cautionary note, this time from NY Magazine, not ordinarily known for caution in such matters. Here’s how that piece treats the Candace Owens reference:
In a self-conducted Q&A, [the shooter] says that popular American conservative Candace Owens “radicalized [him] the most,” although this is almost certainly another joke, since he says, “The extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes.”
Since Owens doesn’t call for extreme actions, this is clearly ironic. The article’s author concludes:
Covering mass shootings is a tricky proposition for the media, which needs to balance conveying information with denying perpetrators the attention they often crave. The Christchurch shooter himself stated that his attack and his writing were in the interest of “further destabilizing and polarizing Western society.” This is the same general MO — shitposting to exacerbate tensions on social media and muddy the waters — of groups like the Internet Research Agency, the Russian-government-backed troll farm. The shooter writes that he is aware the attack will heighten the intense debate over the Second Amendment in the U.S., a target shared by the aforementioned Russian group. The shooter’s plainly stated desire to murder Muslims — due to his (needless to say) erroneous belief that they represent a threat to white people — and to create confusion and further polarization seems like the most important component of his manifesto to pay attention to, rather than whatever social media content he might invoke.
This man is apparently in custody, so there will almost certainly be a trial. Whether we will ever know much more than we know now about his motives is highly uncertain. Most mass shootings in houses of worship have seemingly simple motives, and most killers who leave manifestos are at least
RIP.
[NOTE: For what it’s worth, so far the intuitive vibe I get from this shooter is similar to the one generated by Las Vegas shooter Paddock, about who I’ve written at length. His motives, IMHO, were basically arrogance, general hatred of the human race, the expression of nihilistic rage, and a desire for fame and to show his superiority. I’m surprised that the New Zealand perp allowed himself to be captured alive, unlike Paddock.]
[ADDENDUM: This caught my eye. If true—and there’s no way of knowing whether it’s true—it seems very odd indeed:
A senior Turkish official says the suspect arrested in the New Zealand mosque attack travelled to Turkey multiple times and spent what the official called an “extended period of time in the country.
He says the suspect may have also travelled to countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish government rules.
The official says an investigation is underway of “the suspect’s movements and contacts within the country.”
He did not say when the suspect travelled to Turkey.]
If I had to guess, the outlets probably know more than they are revealing at the moment- it did strike me, too, how carefully they treated this after the initial reporting. I think, perhaps, they have more detail on the shooter’s past than we have seen, and it doesn’t neatly line up as a “right-wing” terrorist act. What I have seen makes him look like the perfect caricature of one.
This hesitation in pegging the shooters as right-wingers is surprising. Is it a Smollett/Hollywood-Hypocrite effect? Has the media begun to wonder if their credibility is close to a point of no return?
From what I’ve read, there were two mosques shot up, one with 42 dead and a second one with 7 dead that had armed good guys shooting back. I believe one of the preps was seen being chased from the 2nd mosque with another guy firing a long gun at him.
For what it’s worth, so far the intuitive vibe I get from this shooter is similar to the one generated by Las Vegas shooter Paddock…
neo: Likewise. There’s something about the twistedness of the motives. “Guess why I’m really doing this…”
_______________________________________________
Pleased to meet you.
Hope you guess my name.
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of the my game.
–Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”
TommyJay:
If true, that would explain why the death toll was smaller at the second mosque. It might also explain the fact that he was taken alive. Was he wounded? I can’t seem to find much on how he was apprehended. Do you have a link?
Despite what the MSM would have us believe, the likelihood of a Christian minority being murdered by Muslims in a Muslim nation is many, many times greater than that of a Muslim being murdered by a non-Muslim in a non-Muslim nation. The slaughter of Christians by Muslims in such disparate countries as Nigeria and Pakistan (to say nothing of the atrocities of ISIS) is commonplace, as is the slaughter of Sunni by Shia, and vice versa, but seldom do these horrors evoke much response from virtue-signaling leftists.
Any reason my comment vanished ?
MikeK:
It was in the wrong thread. I’ll move it to this one.
In the Twitterverse, I have seen the phrase “white terrorism” being thrown about in connection with this incident. This fits with the general SJW war on white people. Watch for this phrase to show up in the MSM…
MikeK:
Actually, it’s much easier if you just cut and paste it here under your own name. Here is where it appears.
I hadn’t thought about the possibility that the shooter’s “manifesto” might be trolling authorities and the public. He describes himself as an “eco-fascist,” admires Communist China, and thinks there are too many people in the world, calling for fewer of the “wrong kind” of people.
https://medium.com/the-radical-center/the-demented-politics-of-the-new-zealand-terrorist-b513fe610b2f
Whether we can take him at his word is a good question.
I am sorry he survived. And I have also read numerous reports that he was chased away from the mosque with the smaller death toll by a man there who had a gun and shot back. That wrecks the gun control narrative.
Here are two links. This one is the one I read. That article used an article from The New Zealand Herald. Excerpt below, (I almost got it correct.)
Via Reuters:
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the suspect in the Christchurch shooting traveled around the world and was not a long-term resident in the country.
Ardern told a news conference in the capital Wellington that the man was an Australian citizen “who traveled sporadically to New Zealand and stayed for varied amount of time.”
“I would not describe him as a long-term resident,” she said.
She said he was, however, not on the watch list in New Zealand or Australia.
There’s also a Manson Helter-Skelter vibe. Manson’s plan was to incite an apocalyptic black-white race war, then afterward the Manson Family would come out of hiding and take over.
The logic wasn’t much better than the “Gnome-Underpants” scheme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts
A couple of comments that are from another blog but strike me as very wise.
1.The Inga reaction is precisely what the manifesto-writer anticipated.
The point is to begin or increase persecution, in order to speed up the social -cultural-political split, and to create incentives for avengers or copycats to amplify the effect.
The victims in this case are in a strange way quite incidental. There had to be victims of such deeds, but the selection can be quite random and opportunistic.
Anders Breivik had a much more specific target, that of removing the next generation of left-wing political figures when he fixed on the socialist youth camp. This was intended for a particular political effect. That was not like this, which is meant for a more traditional terrorist purpose, that of creating a reaction.
Inga is a left wing commenter,
2. This is precisely the sort of manifestation I was expecting in the US.
The general hatred and anxiety is piling up very quickly, and its inevitable that it will break out. The big surprise is that this one broke in New Zealand. Well, at least among the English-speaking it is one media world now.
The manifesto is explicit about the purpose, and historically this is a sound approach, if your purpose is to start revolutions and civil wars. Its the old anarchist “propaganda of the deed”, but of course it goes back before that. Its the same reasoning that Charles Manson used. Indeed, its the same reasoning the Russian Social Revolutionaries used in the 19th century, to force a reaction by the state, to enhance the contradictions. Lenins brother became a revolutionary martyr as a result of one such incident. This sort of thing succeeds, or doesn’t, depending on the perceived legitimacy and effectiveness of the state.
Ultimately the US in Mansons day was still sound, and his conspiracy was simply evil futility. In Russia the same thing was eventually effective in driving large factions of the intelligentsia and the state apart, as it exploited inherent weaknesses. What now, in this culture? We will see.
The manifesto is perceptive and clever. It anticipates a reaction, it perhaps deliberately invites suspicions of false flags, etc. And the fact that the lot of them let themselves be captured alive means that the whole thing will remain prominent for a long time. These people will remain available to speak for years.
When things crack, the cracks start at weak points, with insane or eccentric or demon-driven people. That doesn’t mean they can’t be extremely clever.
I had compared the shooter to Charles Manson.
I have also read that the attackers attempted to attack another mosque but someone in the mosque was armed and they were driven off.
Neo, thanks for noticing,.
Graeme Wood (who wrote a piece on ISIS a few years ago not at all liked by leftists) just read the NZ shooter’s manifesto and says it’s got a “fascist core”:
Mike K: Inga!
Lawsy, that takes me back to my Althouse days. I stopped visiting regularly after Althouse went nutso for a couple months five or six years ago.
I never figured Inga for deeper motives. She just seemed a typical, not-too-bright leftie splatting out her “talking-point” comments, incapable of real debate — rather like our local leftie hero, Manju.
Nick Monroe thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1106707819376590848
Chock-a-block with information
“Despite what the MSM would have us believe, the likelihood of a Christian minority being murdered by Muslims in a Muslim nation is many, many times greater than that of a Muslim being murdered by a non-Muslim in a non-Muslim nation. The slaughter of Christians by Muslims in such disparate countries as Nigeria and Pakistan (to say nothing of the atrocities of ISIS) is commonplace, as is the slaughter of Sunni by Shia, and vice versa, but seldom do these horrors evoke much response from virtue-signaling leftists.”
Correct and it begs the question: why are whites expected to be better than that with some kind of moral superiority over angry Muslims? The implications of such a stance are staggering. I wish someone smarter than me would explore that.
New Zealand’s gun control laws are more restrictive than ours. Yet they had a mass shooting. Conclusion: Restrictive gun control laws don’t necessarily prevent mass shootings.
Gun control laws in New Zealand are very tight for non-citizens. Yet, the perp, an Aussie, had guns and ammo. Conclusion: Gun laws don’t reliably stop determined shooters.
The attack on the second mosque was disrupted by an armed man. Conclusion: Defensive arms at a shooting scene can stop an attack.
These are not the conclusions being reached by the left. And probably never will be.
The perp’s manifesto seems to be trollish. Is that intentional or is he just deranged? Hope the Kiwis get some answers.
Meantime, remember that it is really that arch villain, Trump’s, fault. 🙂
Lawsy, that takes me back to my Althouse days
She was “unknown” for a while. I had to stop responding and quit commenting for a while. I try to avoid engaging the trolls.
“Survivor says ‘hero’ stopped New Zealand massacre by tackling shooter”:
I read the entire manifesto tonight- it is disturbingly lucid. I don’t think you dealing here with a psychopath, sociopath, or even someone who is mentally ill. He will incite retribution andimitators/followers. This fuse won’t be easily stamped out.
I expect the online services to try ruthlessly to stamp out this manifesto, and they will only fan the flames by doing so.
Another of the unforeseen consequences of the Palo Alto technologies:
The mainstreaming of snuff movies.
The shooter is Brenton Tarrant, 28 years old, an Australian, and rather short, judging by his court photo flanked by two police officers (where he also makes a mocking hand gesture).
His manifesto and the video of the attack can still be found on-line, although it’s not an easy process. The major Internet companies have tried to remove both, but so many individuals now have copies that they can just post in other places.
I skimmed through the manifesto last night. Based on what little I read, Brenton Tarrant appears to be someone that hasn’t had steady work or a career path; an average student at best in high school; and a person who has spent a lot of time on the Internet. His travels to other countries (Europe and Pakistan) may have been financed by gains in cryptocurrency. He is not the type to have many close friends or to have adult relationships beyond high school. Brenton Tarrant seems to have delusions of grander similar to those of Anders Breivik (the 2011 Norway mass shooter).
The video of the mosque attack is just under 17 minutes long, showing him in his Subaru hatchback driving up to the mosque, then about 6.5 minutes in commencing the attack on those people inside, and then exiting the mosque at 9 minutes in. He returns to his car, then re-enters the mosque around 10.5 minutes in to shoot the wounded, who are in piles near the doorways. By minute 12.5 he is back in his car, having executed the woman by the sidewalk. In the remaining few minutes, he drives away in his car, and shoots several more times from the car, presumably at recognizably Muslim persons on the street.
There is another short 45-second video, made by a passing New Zealand motorist, showing two police officers dragging him out of his car and arresting him, after the police have rammed the side of his car with their own to drive him off the road.
This is grim viewing, and we will all learn more in the weeks to come. As for now, in that situation, the only chance anyone had to escape unscathed was to react FAST and RUN, getting in as much cover, concealment, and distance as possible. That is not always easy, when caught by surprise and when under great stress.
“Gun control laws in New Zealand are very tight for non-citizens. Yet, the perp, an Aussie, had guns and ammo. Conclusion: Gun laws don’t reliably stop determined shooters.” — J.J.
Reading more at New Zealand Herald, they claim that it is relatively easy to buy firearms in NZ as a foreign visitor, if you already have a firearms license from another country. I believe I read the Aussie perp was a gun club member back in Australia, meaning he had a license.
With the basic permit you can buy a semi-auto with a 7 round mag. max. You need a top level NZ permit to buy the high capacity mags. So I’d say that both the Australian and NZ guns laws didn’t work. Shocker. I guess they need more.
One of the survivors (not sure which location) said that in spite of being the middle of the city, it took 20 minutes for police to arrive. It’s not an official number.
____
Ann caught the new news. The Linwood mosque guy with a gun actually took it from one of the preps. A witness said he thought this guy couldn’t find the trigger. Maybe, or he didn’t know about the pump action, or it was empty.
In the shooter’s video, he takes a shotgun and an assault rifle with him when he approaches the mosque. He fires the shotgun at those people in the entrance multiple times, until the shotgun is completely out of rounds. He then drops the shotgun on the floor and switches to the assault rifle. Then he uses the assault rifle to kill the people inside the mosque on his first attack. He has multiple magazines with him, some of which were clipped together for faster reloads. He returns to the car and goes to the trunk, where there is another assault rifle. He drops the first assault rifle on the ground by the car, picks up the second assault rifle, and briefly handles some red plastic fuel cans, ultimately leaving them in the car. He returns to the mosque, shooting more people inside with the second assault rifle, then returns to his car, firing other rounds down both sides of the street, including a heartless execution of the wounded woman by the sidewalk. As he drives off, he still has that second assault rifle with him, and three other long-arms in the passenger seat. With one of those, another shotgun, he fires several times out of the car window as he drives along.
With all of those casualties, and the multiple locations, weapons, and other suspects, there will be a long investigation until the full story of what happened is known.
Read what Rod Dreher says about Brenton Tarrant’s Manifesto: “RADICALIZATION IS THE RATIONAL RESPONSE TO DEGENERATION”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/radicalization-degeneration-brenton-tarrant-white-supremacist/
Here’s the chilling part: Everything Tarrant identifies as qualities of a disintegrating Western civilization is true. You may think that declining numbers of ethnic Europeans is a good thing, or something that has no particular moral meaning. But it really is happening. So are all the rest.
Marx gave excellent critiques about capitalism. His Marxist solution is terrible, but his critiques were very good, at the time, and even now remain relevant (too relevant, with silly elites espousing them.)
This Deranged guy Tarrant’s critiques are good critiques. His solution is terrible, but his critiques are very good. So they remain relevant — and will be relevant for the rest of our lives. We will see increasing radicalization.
Rod’s answer is in his excellent book: The Benedict Option — Christians need to form more Christian communities and protect their children more, and increase the dedication of the Christians. Lots of good analysis of the problems of Western Civ; and a reasonable answer. I don’t think it’s the only one, but I’m living in Slovakia where the constitution does say marriage is between one man and one woman.
Our next Slovak President, run-off is in 2 weeks, will probably be the less corrupt, more PC pro-abortion divorced woman, rather than the more corrupt man from the current ruling party.
Perhaps too many people are “getting spoiled” by too much easy, comfortable, materialism. I call that progress, but can see where many take other side effects of these changes and call it degeneration.