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 trying to making their motives clear, whether they succeed or not. The New Zealand perp seems to be doing something quite different. Whether or not hatred of Muslims is at the core of his motivation for killing so many Muslim worshipers, at the very least we can safely say that he considers Muslim lives quite expendable in the course of achieving whatever goal it is that he seeks.
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.]
