According to the article, suspect “Christopher Paul Hasson was arrested last week on gun and drug charges”. In the court document included in the article, prosecutors say that he had written a draft email “dreaming of a way to kill every last person on the earth.”
My heart sank when I read that.
Guilty of crimethink. Now is the time for virtue signalers to gather round and invoke the ritual Two Minutes Hate.
@SatchelSF- https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/02/21/prosecutors-coast-guard-officer-plotted-to-murder-innocent-civilians/
This individual had the motivation, means and was starting to act upon a plan to kill people. He was not just thinking or contemplating it. He was a steroid and opioid abuser who had clearly articulated an intent to commit mass murder.
Clearly not someone who should be in possession of firearms. I agree the media will make a big deal and likely overplay his white supremacist affiliation, but that doesn’t negate the risk he posed. We are lucky he was identified and stopped from hurting people.
I imagine the Las Vegas shooter had the same “dream” and I’m sorry he wasn’t caught before he could act on it.
@SatchelSF, did you read the story? “Authorities found 15 guns and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition in Hasson’s apartment.” He had a list of targets, too. This goes way beyond “thinking.”
I don’t think the guns and ammo are a problem, but the list and internet searches indicate that there was indeed something to be concerned about. The guy sounds like a ticking time bomb and I’m glad he was arrested and hopefully tragedy averted.
I don’t remember anyone calling this terrorist plot aimed at subways and concerts in NYC “crimethink.” Is this different somehow?
I don’t think the white supremacist aspect can be “overplayed.”
Earlier in the week a small town newspaper editorial called for the return of the KKK.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/feb/20/alabama-editorial-backs-kkk-return/
As a culture we have to deal with the uncomfortable truth that there are people out there who actively stand against our national narrative of equality for all. And part of that truth is that there are a lot more of them out there than we might like to think. It is to our eventual benefit that this is exposed and addressed.
Of course, for those of us in multiracial families, this is not news. We haven’t had the luxury of being oblivious.
I reserve my right to be opposed to and concerned about armed individuals who make threats. Being a white nationalist shouldn’t get him off the hook. You’re free to think otherwise, @SatchelSF, as I’m free to disagree with you.
@Snowball City my intent by using the term “overplay” wasn’t to minimize the potential actions of this criminal or suggest that hate and racism don’t exist. It does appear however this is a lone crazy person who has embraced a hateful doctrine. In many way like the Steve Scalise shooter but the other side of the political spectrum.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise-congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html
My suggestion was that the media tends to integrate stories like this into a gun rights or MAGA discussion. This tendency polarizes the issue. We can all (hopefully) agree a person who wants to kill people based on race or politics is a despicable human being that needs to be incarcerated. To detract from what could be a unifying story to me is overplaying and what I fear will happen.
I similarly hope the Jussie Smollett story isn’t used to diminish legitimate reports of harassment or racism. I suspect we agree on most things.,. In particular our societal need to aggressively respond to acts of racism. My comments were not intended to suggest otherwise.
Interesting coincidence:
Lt. *Hasson/i - potential white supremacist terrorist “dreaming” of killing “every last person”
Maj. *Hasan/i - actual Muslim terrorist detained after killing 13 and wounding 30 non-Muslims
Hasson is charged with weapons violations and drugs. Let’s not lose sight of the facts in a fantasy to convict a white nationalist. You would think that just after a rich, gay, black man invented - allegedly, of course - a crime to paint white nationalists, people would be a little more circumspect until all the facts get out.
Call him what he is: a white terrorist. He planned mass assassinations in the name of white supremacy/ nationalism.
I was watching Chris Hayes last night when the news broke. Chris was on this terrorist’s list. Let’s just say I would not have been nearly as calm as he was reporting on my assassination plans.
Totally disagree. That in combination with the fact that he allegedly had made a specific hit list of people he deemed deserving of assassination is a huge problem in my opinion.
From the linked article:
Would any of you posting here be cavalier about a person putting you on a hit list, then learning that he had a stockpile of guns and ammo? I certainly wouldn’t.
Interestinly enough, based on currently available information it appears all of the guns were legal to possess, and legally possessed, and the only “gun charge” he was arrested for was being a habitual user of narcotics, which would make him a prohibited person.
They didn’t take the guns based on his plans to commit mass murder, which is odd because Maryland just enacted an ERPO law in October.
This will be a very interesting court case.
I’m glad he’s in custody but I worry he won’t be for long enough.
I’m not that familiar with gun laws. If he is a “prohibited person” for whatever reason, how is it that “all guns were legal to possess”?
Yes, in combination with the hit list it is a huge problem. I simply meant that the weapons on their own, were not a problem. If he were a normal citizen without drug use, hateful rhetoric, and intent to commit crimes then I see no issue with how many guns or ammo he owned.
I just know I breathe a sigh of relief whenever one of these stories makes the news vs one telling of the aftermath. I don’t give a hoot about age, gender, race, nationality, beliefs (religious or otherwise), or anything else. A tragedy averted is a “good” tragedy.
I’m glad there are folks out there looking for such things and/or giving tips to authorities so they can find such things before there’s any “I wish” aspect to it.
Anyone plotting ways to kill a huge number of people IRL (vs movies or books or hypothetical fun conversations - generally involving how to survive such an incident) has at least one screw loose (or missing).
That’s a perfectly understandable question. It is essentially a due process issue. The authorities are claiming that this unbalanced individual is a habitual user of narcotics based on items they found in his home and emails they found on his computer. That isn’t exactly iron clad proof, and nothing has been adjudicated yet, but they leaned on it as a means to take him into custody and to confiscate his guns.
I often wonder about the number of threads started in a parent, relationship, and college forum about extremism and the worst and scariest of the news out there. Yeah, it’s a free country and these things are alarming. But when is talk productive versus just alarmist and rebutting someone who thinks it’s nothing to sniff at?
So I’m just here to say that.