An elderly manwalked into the Holocaust Museum, one of the capital’s most-visited sites, shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday and opened fire with a shoulder weapon or pistol, wounding a security guard before being shot and disabled himself, officials said.
The gunman was identified by NBC News as James W. von Brunn, a man in his late 80s who embraces a far-reaching conspiracy theory involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups, according a Web site he maintains. Early reports indicated that he lives in eastern Maryland.
However, the police chief here, Cathy Lanier, said the identity of the gunman had not been confirmed.
Jeffrey Feldman has some background on the alleged shooter’s history with weapons.
According to NBC, the man who shot a security guard and potentially one to two other people at the Holocaust Museum today is 89-year-old James W. Von Brunn. Von Brunn maintains a white-supremacist Web site, HolyWesternEmpire.org. The biography of Von Brunn on the site states that he spent over six years in federal prison for attempting to “place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest.” A World War II veteran and resident of Maryland, Von Brunn is the author of a pamphlet entitled “Kill the Best Gentiles: A new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool.” He is a Holocaust denier who has written that “Hilter’s worse mistake” was that “he didn’t gas the Jews.”
This and an abortion provider shot within less than two weeks. But sure, the Obama administration was over-reaching when they said that right-wing domestic extremism is a threat. And heaven forbid we suggest that there should be some basic limitations on gun ownership. I’ll just quote Pareene:
When the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of potential violence by “right-wing extremists,” the right-wingers of the internet were enraged. Then some right-wing extremists started killing people.
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This is awful. And I just learned via several people on Twitter that the guard has died.
I don’t have any words for it.
I am literally shaking with rage. These people cannot be reasoned with and it is time to call them what they are TERRORISTS. They hide behind God and country and then commit acts of violence. You can be certain that this killer was well steeped in racist ideology that has been allowed to run unchecked. When are we going to stop allowing the proliferation of hatred under the guise of free speech. Just reading this mans website was enough to make me ill.
Just recently Wiley Drake a supposed man of God admitted to praying for Tillers death and is now praying for OBamas. He claimed Tillers death was an answer to prayers. This is the kind of vile hatred we are up against. As long as we allow this kind of hate speech to continue to fill the airwaves unchecked we are going to continue to see a rise in this kind of violence. Free speech is not free when it comes at the cost of a life.
I am so sorry for the victims family and I hope that now at long last people will start to take these people seriously. They are not just some sort of lunatic fringe we can afford to ignore.
This is terrible. And it’s not just a lone gunman- it’s a culture. Horrifying.
I was really pissed at this nutcase when I first saw the breaking news. I don’t really support the death penalty but the degree of wantonness here makes me rethink that.
However, I do want to take issue with some of the opportunistic use of this and other tragedies (like George Tiller) to support political ends, coupled with what I see as hypocrisy. As to the hypocrisy: if you contrast the reaction of this shooting of a peace officer with the coverage given on this site to the shooting in Oakland of several cops, you can see what I mean. Because that shooter was African American, people extended feelings of empathy towards what he did. Also, there was a shooting recently of a Muslim convert of military recruiters, and I have not seen that mentioned on this site. I am not trying to undermine the horror of what happened in DC today – just trying to point out that when Renee throws out terms like “terrorist” here, we need to ask why that’s done here but if it was done in the context of an African American or Muslim we immediately cry foul. Also, would Renee call for suppression of the free religion/speech rights of extremist Islamist websites, particularly when they call for the imposition of Sharia law, which is used to justify some of the awful things extremist Muslims in this country have perpetrated against their wives and daughters? I have heard no such calls on this website. I think we should be “equal opportunity” in our intolerance – rightful intolerance – of political and religious extremism. We should not make excuses for ANY extreme religious/political/criminal behavior, period. We can explain it from sociological or economic perspectives, but in terms of morality and empathizing, we should reject all of it equally.
As to the opportunistic use of these tragedies, I find the calls for “more gun control” in response to these things nauseating. Not only is it exploitative of horrible tragedies, but DC has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation (which does us absolutely no good). Furthermore, this guy was a convicted felon with jail time – he by definition could not legally possess a firearm. There is literally no possible other regulation that could have kept this nutjob from obtaining a firearm – he would have bought one off the Russian or Isreali black market if he wanted one that badly, which he clearly did. There is a thriving black market in this country for guns, and no amount of regulation will do any good for people like this. You shouldn’t use knee-jerk reactions to tragedies to suppress the legitimate constitutional rights of law-abiding people. A more sensible approach is to punish gun crimes extremely harshly (which still probably won’t do much until we address the underlying cause of the vast amount of gun crime – urban poverty).
This isn’t about gun control. He was in DC, where the handgun and the shotgun he was carrying were already illegal. No amount of new laws will stop the people who aren’t going to obey the law anyway.
And to bring this somewhat back on topic, gun control is most definitely a feminist issue – a handgun is the great equalizer. If you make it more difficult to legally acquire a firearm, you make it harder for a law-abiding abused woman to protect herself. But the same law that makes it difficult for her to get a gun won’t inconvenience her abuser, who has already shown their willingness to ignore the law.
“And heaven forbid we suggest that there should be some basic limitations on gun ownership.”
There are already more than just basic limitations on the books involving gun ownership. If this guy spent time in Federal prison, he’s a convicted felon. So he was breaking laws just by owning a gun, and couldn’t have purchased one because he couldn’t pass the BATFE background checks.
If someone is bent on death and destruction, it can be next to impossible to stop them. The guys who pulled off 9/11 started out with box cutters. How many people did they murder? How many laws did they break planning and implementing the attack?
It just goes to show that we cannot legislate hate and malice out of existence.
@Marksmann2000
It just goes to show that we cannot legislate hate and malice out of existence.
You Americans and your guns. Your statement is absolutely false. You will note that in both Canada and Great Britain which have strict gun laws we do not have the same level of gun related deaths. You guessed it, the two are related. Get rid of the guns and the violence will reduce.
My argument is with, “Then some right-wing extremists started killing people.” They didn’t. They kept killing people. The UU church massacre is a recent example. These people went apeshit long ago. The DHS report wasn’t predictive – it was descriptive. The violence was already underway. And it won’t stop. We’ve got an armed insurgency right here in the USA, and that armed insurgency has the backing of one of our major political parties, making it impossible to deal with them the way we should.
Jeffrey Goldberg makes a valuable point — this is not a day to rehash the gun debate, but to remember a victim of terrorism — excerpted from his blog in its entirety. I’m trying to blockquote the text, but I can’t preview the content so if it doesn’t appear, see the url here:
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/the_hobby_horses_come_riding_i.php
The killing at the museum make me feel very depressed. What is happening? I know there are many people who also think this anti-Jewish feeling is getting worse. I’ve heard things in public that I didn’t use to hear about Jews and Israel. It’s all over the internet. And it used to not be this way.
Von Brunn probably held these views for many years, but only now did he act on it, setting an example. He was a “lone wolf” per terrorism parlance. But I can’t help but think this is part of a larger pattern of anti-Semitic violence and rhetoric. I think many people, a lot more people than most of us probably realize, are using Jews as a scapegoat for their problems.
I don’t want to be the pessimist, but I doubt this is just a blip, but something more sinister that’s growing and developing. And there’s nothing I can do about it to prevent it from spreading. What can we do? It’s the sense of helplessness that’s most depressing.
And don’t forget the extremist who killed that soldier in Little Rock a couple of weeks ago.
Apparently the Holocaust museum terrorist had earlier sought a meeting with the President and was shouting “them Jews aren’t going to let me talk to him.” You’d think that the people who had been hanging around him the last twenty years or so would have noticed he had a screw loose and made sure the FBI was watching him.
My bad. For some reason I blockquoted my own text, and Goldberg’s quote… disappeared. FYI: Those are not Goldberg’s words. Could an administrator do me a favor and either remove the comment or edit out the blockquote tag?
Apparently the Holocaust museum terrorist had earlier sought a meeting with the President and was shouting “them Jews aren’t going to let me talk to him.”
I think you’re getting this confused with a different story. That “them Jews” quote was from Reverend Wright. http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_wright_0610jun10,0,7603283.story
Elsewhere, someone noted the UU church shootings occurred around the time Obama got the nomination. I do think there is a connection between the feeling that they (the far right-wing) is losing and uptick in violence, and I fear it will continue. There was a lot more right-wing violence and domestic terrorism under Clinton, and I think with Obama being black, there will be an even stronger reaction from the right. I am fearful, and I hate that I’m fearful.
And yes, the Jews are apparently keeping the Rev. Wright from seeing Obama. Given how he seemed to feel about blacks, I highly doubt the museum shooter sought a meeting with the president. If anything in particular set him off, I imagine seeing a black man become president of the United States and then hearing that man denounce Holocaust denial could well have been it.
Ruchama, that link isn’t working for me. Is Wright the minister at the museum shooter’s Klan church? If so, the Feds should bring a RICO suit against it and anyone who was ever a member there to put an end to this Christianist madness. They’re just as responsible for inciting this violence as O’Reilly and Faux News were for the Tiller murder.
No, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former minister in Chicago.
Anti-Semitism is not a mental illness, Robert.
Obama belonged to an extremist anti-Semitic church?
[...] Shooting at DC Holocaust Museum [...]
Yikes. Once again, not sure if Northeast Elizabeth is for real or not, but I’m pretty heavily leaning towards not.
Elizabeth & JessSnark:
I don’t know if I’d label the whole Church, but yes, Reverend Wright made several antisemitic remarks. That’s old news, though.
JessSnark — not following you, Ruchama brought up this Wright stuff. Sounds like he’s posting phony links or spreading Faux News rumors. As Joe-D says, tbe alleged comments are old news which have probably been since debunked.
Can we get a mod in here?
Northeast Elizabeth, you were the one who brought up the Reverend Wright quote, I just corrected the source. The article quoting him is from today. There’s a recording at the link I posted. (I’m not sure why that link isn’t working for you.) I don’t know much about the paper that the quote comes from — it looks like a local Virginia paper.
But really, none of this is relevant to this shooting.
Drop the Rev. Wright de-rail please.
Yeah, or, you know, gotten him some psychiatric help — probably a better first step than FBI surveillance.
Jill, I think that NE Elizabeth is making a joke out of this, like it’s really funny to point out some sort of imagined inconsistency on the left and string us all along, Colombo-like. That’s what I was hoping for some help on. I find it really fucking offensive. A man is dead.
I know Chingona, that wasn’t directed at you. I just got home and I’m exhausted and wanted to go to bed instead of reading through this whole thread, which is why I just asked for the de-rail to end instead of getting into it.
NE Elizabeth, you’ve been obnoxious in every thread you’ve entered. Drop it now or I’m going to ban you.
Everyone else, please drop the Rev. Wright issue. It is old news and it’s just feeding a de-rail.
Jill,
I’m sorry. This is just the second thread I’ve been on and I’m just getting used to the blog and its rules. When I finally was able to open Ruchama’s link I realized I had mixed up the quotes (although it seemed they were from today rather than old news, which is why I questioned its authenticity).
Anyway, I’m sorry and I agree our thoughts should be with the families of Dr. Tiller, the soldier and the mueum guard.
Thanks, Jill. I know you have a life outside this blog.
This isn’t accurate. Here in the UK, we didn’t have our strict gun laws until 1997. Before that, we still had nowhere near the USA’s level of gun crime. I’m a supporter of gun control laws, but it’s misleading to act like they’re the answer by themselves.
“I’m a supporter of gun control laws, but it’s misleading to act like they’re the answer by themselves.”
Well, I think it’s hard to compare America’s gun culture with any other country because it’s unique to us. I honestly don’t know if the U.S. has more violent people than other countries or if the ability to get a gun and act out makes our violent citizens more visible. There has always been a tangled web between our celebration (if not outright worship) of guns and the overall desensitization to violence that affects the majority of our citizens. But it’s really hard to tell what came first. And you’re partially right that gun control laws in themselves will not solve this problem completely.
But it doesn’t have to, because stricter gun control laws would still make a huge difference. An armed security guard was shot to death, do you really think the same outcome would have occured if this guy had a knife? I’m still waiting for a clear answer as to why anyone convicted of a felony and served 6 yrs got his hands on a rifle and was able to shoot up a national museum in D.C. which was pretty damn close to the capitol building. Not to mention this guy had a list of lawmakers on him as well. I doubt it was anything other than a hit list.
You may not be able to stop psychopaths like this guy solely by gun laws, but what you will do is mitigate the damage they can inflict. I think it’s really not helpful to get bogged down by the “people kill people” debate here, because Dr. Tiller and now this guard and everyone else in that museum were hunted by a terrorist. Now I’m told that not one but two major wars were necessary to defeat terrorists, is it really too much to ask for my government to protect me against the home grown kind by getting the weapons out of their hands?
@sh wondering how a felon got a gun is like wondering how a felon got some drugs (or anyone for that matter)
Gun control laws only matter to law-abiding citizens.
“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
–Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. ”
- Alexander Tytler
This particular instance is awkward, but talking about antisemitism -whether it’s the Rev. Wright’s or anyone else’s- is hardly derailing a conversation about an antisemitic murder.
Matt, antisemitism is not off-topic here, but bringing up Reverend Wright and playing dumb about who he is is a derail.
Bringing up Wright’s antisemitic remarks sets up a kind of false similarity as if liberals and conservatives are equally to blame for the murder of a guard just because members of both groups have said antisemitic things.
Again with the violence != sign of mental illness.
No kidding. I watched last night feeling frustrated as people attempted to write this off as just some delusional elderly man who lost his grip on reality. Of course, if he and Roeder had been Muslims… we’d be seeing people freaking out about the terrorists becoming so active (and is it Obama’s fault???).
Jess, I agree about the playing dumb thing.
But it is not a partisan issue. All antisemitism, right or left, is part of the problem. Making it about left or right is burying the problem of antisemitism inside a completely different debate.
Bringing up Wright’s antisemitic remarks sets up a kind of false similarity as if liberals and conservatives are equally to blame for the murder of a guard just because members of both groups have said antisemitic things.
I don’t see how it’s a false similarity. The premise I’ve seen articulated here is that disagreeable or hateful speech targeted at a group or individual constitutes incitement to murder. It shouldn’t matter whether the speaker is O’Reilly or Rev. Wright.
Personally, it seems to me that in the cases of Dr. Tiller, the museum guard and the Little Rock soldier, the killers were loners acting primarily in response to voice in their heads. But if it’s fair to say that a long history of hateful comments from O’Reilly or the Right triggered murder, the same should be said of Rev. Wright’s antisemitism. Dismissing it as “old news” is disingenuous, not just because the last antisemitic remark he made was yesterday, but because the news is only “old” because he’s been saying such things for twenty years. One could certainly dismiss things said over a long period of time by O’Reilly or right-wingers as “old news,” but instead what has been done is to cast such statements as an incriminating form of prolonged harassment.
I just don’t think it’s at all plausible that Rev. Wright was a major influence on Von Brunn’s ideology, given Von Brunn’s hatred of blacks. I do, however, think it’s plausible that O’Reilly may have been an influence on Roeder’s ideology.
I doubt he was a direct influence. But I bet Mearsheimer and Walt were much more directly influential, and I doubt they’d have made it to the NYTimes bestseller list without a lot of people like Rev. Wright. If the point is that antisemitism is a phenomenon larger than the far right, I think that’s absolutely spot on.
It’s unfortunate that the Holocaust will never be laid to rest by supremacists. It’s unfortunate how these right-winged patriarchal contributors only unleash havoc on casualties only to create a minor disturbance in society. This guy is no different than Muslim extremists and suicide bombers around the world. The only way to stop this thought is to remove the sadism from culture, which is an enigma. I am sure the man claimed that God would have wanted him to do this, I always find this sort of thinking to be ridiculous and extremely racist. Anti-semitism will only go away, when all the of the supporters put down their weapons, ideologies, and attitudes and start supporting equality for everyone. Such a cookie cutter idea that will never promote peace.
@misteranthropist.
Should the holocaust be laid to rest?
“You guessed it, the two are related. Get rid of the guns and the violence will reduce”
Yeah, it’s working great in Mexico, isn’t it?
Taking away guns from civilians will only make sense if they are also taken away from the police, the military, and all other government.
I was on a school trip and we were on our way to the Holocuast Museum when we got a txt that said an 88 year old man walked in to the Museum and shot three people one died and two were taken to the hostpital we were scared knowing that we were on our way there and we could have been there any min there were police every where and we were so scared but that was not going to stop us.