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TheFreim 5 days ago

It's not impossible, but I find this to be very unlikely.

Nick Fuentes has repeatedly condemned political violence for years, he and his followers have also been trying to get Kirk to debate him, so killing is counter-productive from that perspective. Furthermore, the "attacks" by Laura Loomer that I've seen don't get anywhere near calling for violence.

ModernMech 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> It's not impossible, but I find this to be very unlikely.

Now that it turned out to be a groyper, you'll have to recalibrate your priors. Turns out it's the people who buy the most guns who are the most violent.

TheFreim 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Now that it turned out to be a groyper, you'll have to recalibrate your priors.

It did not "turn out to be a groyper". There is zero substantial evidence for this claim, its a complete fabrication. Elle Reeve, a journalist at CNN who has followed the far-right since the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally in 2017, said of those claiming that the shooter was a Groyper that, "It’s like they’re grasping at vapor."

ModernMech 3 days ago | parent [-]

Saying "there is zero substantial evidence" is cope at this point, they caught the guy. There was zero substantial evidence for it being a leftist/immigrant/woke/trans person. Now that they have the person, all evidence is pointing the other way: terminally online/incel/white/Mormon/rural/gamer/gun nut. Those people aren't leftists, they're groypers. So you have to update your estimate from "very unlikely" to "actually pretty likely".

TheFreim 2 days ago | parent [-]

> There was zero substantial evidence for it being a leftist/immigrant/woke/trans person.

I've did not claim it was someone who is trans, an immigrant, or woke, however all evidence currently available points to him being a leftist. Some people early on were lead to believe that the shooter was trans due to reports of "trans-ideology" being found on the casings, but that was a rash, pre-mature extrapolation. The relevant text can be attributed to a wider array of groups/online sub-cultures (notably, the text cannot be clearly attributed to the groypers).

There is, however, evidence that the shooter was on the far-left.

1. Terminology used by the radical-left-wing to slander Kirk found on the casings ("hey fascist! CATCH!"). No Groyper would ever use such a phrase, they don't think of Kirk as a fascist and themselves get accused of being fascists.

2. Reference to an anti-fascist song most often played by far-left figures, particularly those identifying themselves as "anti-fascist".

3. A high school friend described the killer as being left-leaning on issues and that he was the only member of his family who was a leftist. This is hearsay so I take it with a grain of salt, but its still important evidence which fits perfectly with the other points.

Furthermore, all of the "evidence" you put forward cannot be considered by any reasonable person to be evidence that someone is a Groyper.

1. Being online a lot isn't evidence that someone is a Groyper. Massive numbers of apolotical, right-leaning, and left-leaning people are "terminally online".

2. I am aware of no evidence at this point that the killer was an "incel" in the sense that the term is typically used.

3. Being white does not make someone a Groyper. Funnily enough, on the contrary, among the online far-right the groypers are often accused of being non-white due to their relative openness to other racial groups.

4. Being Mormon is not evidence of being a Groyper. On the contrary, Catholics are most represented among the groypers with only a few figures being Mormon.

5. Playing video games is not evidence that someone is a Groyper.

6. I am aware of no evidence at this point that the killer was a "gun nut". Furthermore, even if he was, this would not be evidence that he was a Groyper since guns are not one of the primary issues addressed by groypers and would only tangentially be related.

In summary, none of what you said is evidence of your claims. I am begging you, and others, to engage honestly about this instead of spreading false claims.

skyyler 2 days ago | parent [-]

>2. Reference to an anti-fascist song most often played by far-left figures, particularly those identifying themselves as "anti-fascist".

Bella Ciao is a groyper meme though. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ais7KJXx8Gyd0hsrbakKW

Bella Ciao added to groyper playlist over two years ago.

TheFreim 2 days ago | parent [-]

An individual remix of a song added to a playlist, which most people have never heard of, multiple years ago does not make it a "groyper meme".

Before the other day when this misinformation campaign began, nobody ever associated the song with groypers. Its always been associated with anti-Fascist, anti-Nazi groups, which contain a completely different set of beliefs. In recent history the only people to ever use the song for political purposes have been left-wing groups: Protestors against the AfD in Germany, communist priest Andrea Gallo, movement against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, left-wing protests against Meloni in Italy.

Combining the lack of substantial evidence of association with groypers with the history of the song being used by left-wing movements, in addition to the evidence in my post above and elsewhere, its clear that this cannot be reasonably associated with groypers by any evidence-oriented person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_ciao

suzzer99 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Here's the shooter in a groyper halloween costume that his sister says is "from some meme": https://imgur.com/XeYByuq

"hey fascist! Catch! Up arrow, right arrow, three down arrow" is a video game reference from a video game called Helldivers 2 that groypers use all the time.

Every bullet casing had a different groyper meme on it. It's either a groyper or a really elaborate groyper false flag. Those are the only two options.

Acting like it's all a coincidence is just spreading disinfo. Thankfully the bots don't make it to HN very often, or this place would be a disaster.

skyyler 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

zahlman 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

suzzer99 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you were going to have an organized hit from some kind of unnamed leftist extremist group, I could think of a dozen more impactful targets than Kirk off the top of my head. So I don't know how much sense that theory makes either.

If it's a lone nut, that could come from anywhere.

zahlman 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I could think of a dozen more impactful targets than Kirk off the top of my head.

This is not the kind of thing I would go around admitting in public.

TheFreim 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

prisenco 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

| I find this to be very unlikely.

And yet, here we are.