Why the Gun Debate is a Distraction When it Comes to the Buffalo Shooting
Another year, and yet another horrific tragedy. We hear about mass shootings all the time. They’re all over the news. What is much less common, however, is an act of violence that can be correctly categorized as domestic terrorism. On May 14th, 2022, 18 year old Payton Gendron committed an atrocity by murdering ten people and injuring three others at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY. Eleven of the victims were black. All sources have confirmed that this was intended to be a hate crime. This shocked and disturbed many New Yorkers and other people across the country, sparking fierce debate about gun laws and free speech. Such debates are a distraction.
The left is going to make this about why we need more gun laws, and the right is going to make this about why we need less. Right wingers are correct when they say that criminals don’t follow gun laws, and that they only hurt law abiding citizens. One could even argue that minorities are especially in need of self defense, in order to protect themselves against attacks like these. However, this is a typical gun debate that can apply to any discussion over firearms — and does not explicitly address the root causes of this incident.
The underlying issue is not about the second amendment. We know that shootings happen irregardless of gun laws. New York has some of the strictest gun control in the country, and that did not prevent any of this. The shooter himself wrote the following in his manifesto: “NY has heavy gun laws so it would ease me if I knew that any legally armed civilian was limited to 10 round magazines […].” If we know these things to be true, the current discussion should not be over guns, but rather, why he chose to do this in the first place. We cannot prevent murder by attempting to restrict legal self defense. What we can do, is try to find ways to prevent murderers from being created.
While it is highly likely that mental illness and mental health issues played a role in this, it’s only a fraction of the problem. In his manifesto, Gendron essentially writes about, in detail, how he came to be radicalized. He first started browsing a website known as 4chan during the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020. 4chan is an anonymous image board site known for being an alt-right, neo-nazi hotbed with zero moderation. A similar website, 8chan, had it’s domain name seized over allegations of child pornography.
Websites like 4chan highlight a darker side of internet culture that many ordinary people just aren’t aware of. Immediately following the shooting, there are plenty of posts praising Gendron. On 5/18/22, one user writes: “/pol/ is predominantly anti-white at this point if they don’t think the buffalo solider is another hero. He may have made a mistake by referencing this site in his manifesto but that doesn’t mean the intention of the shooting is to have /pol/ taken down.” (The remaining text was omitted due to including slurs.)
America has a growing problem with young white men being radicalized into extremist ideologies. Payton Gendron is not a unique case. Like many others, he bought into the “Great Replacement” conspiracy, and was a self identified fascist who despised libertarians, stating “Modern American libertarianism was largely pioneered by Jews.”
According to data collected by the Anti-Defamation League, the vast majority of politically or ideologically motivated murders are committed by right-wing extremists over the last decade. Between 2010 and 2019, 76% of perpetrators were classified as right wing, 20% as Islamist, and 3% as left-wing. This is an overwhelming contrast. “Since the 9/11 attack, far-right extremists killed more people in the US than did American-based Islamist fundamentalists”, reads a headline from an article published by The Guardian.
When comparing various hate-incidents by ideology, there have been 42 left-wing incidents from 2002–2022. There have been 122 identified as Islamist. Meanwhile, from that same time period, 17,192 have been categorized as white supremacist. There is clear data that suggests this specific type of ideological extremism (white supremacy and ethonationalism) is a growing concern nationwide.
There is an abundance of reasons to conclude that these views are spreading like wildfire due to online forums like 4chan. Gendron considered not committing the massacre, but stated that 4chan inspired him to go through with it. In a diary entry, he states: “Every time I think I shouldn’t commit an attack I spend 5 min of /pol/, then my motivation returns.”
Making this about guns takes away from correctly identifying the real issue, which is the motives behind the murder. This is not an isolated incident, it’s only the most recent. Some may recall the Christchurch massacre that occurred in New Zealand back in 2019. The New Zealand shooter, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, livestreamed himself gunning down 51 Muslims while praying. He also wrote a manifesto that circulated around the internet. The Buffalo shooter cited it as a “source of inspiration”.
What can we hope to learn from the written manifestos of mass shooters? Perhaps, if their writing is analyzed, we can better understand what causes such people to lash out, and how to prevent such things from happening in the first place. There is enough research out there in which explains how this happens. The next step for Americans to take is learn how to stop this radicalization, before hate infiltrates the hearts of more desperate young people. Deprogramming the alt-right needs to be a massive priority to our society, or this country may quickly descend into fascism, in the same way that Germany did during WWII.
