The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Teenage Jew-Hater Kills 1, Wounds 3 in California Synagogue Shooting

Posted on | April 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Teenage Jew-Hater Kills 1, Wounds 3 in California Synagogue Shooting

 

A 19-year-old college student is in custody in San Diego after a Sabbath-morning shooting rampage at a synagogue in suburban Poway, California. Police say John T. Earnest killed one person and wounded three others at the Chabad Community Center, after posting a 4,000-word manifesto online in which he blamed “international Jewry” for “sealing the doom of my race.” The son of a high-school science teacher, Earnest also apparently hated Muslims, claiming responsibility for an arson last month at a mosque in Escondido, about 9 miles from the synagogue he attacked with a semi-automatic rifle Saturday.

In his manifesto, Earnest says he was inspired by a man who attacked a synagogue in Pittsburgh last year, and by last month’s massacre of Muslims in New Zealand. Skimming through his manifesto, and glancing at details of Earnest’s background, I was deeply disturbed: Here is a smiling, handsome young man with so many obvious advantages who, nevertheless, appears to have been radicalized by the Internet in the span of a few months. “If you told me even 6 months ago that I would do this I would have been surprised,” Earnest wrote in his manifesto, which made reference to various online forums. He had apparently been reading these message boards since 2017, and developed an obsessive hatred of Jews, whom he called a “squalid and parasitic race.”

Discussing this on “The Other Podcast” Saturday with John Hoge, I expressed dismay at this situation. When I was a teenager 40 years ago, there were a lot of things to be bummed out over, but nobody was shooting up synagogues. Mainly we were smoking weed and listening to rock-and-roll music, which might not have been the healthiest response, but it was at least more fun than Jew-hating and mass murder.

Somehow, I suppose, liberals will find a way to blame Trump for this, which is no less crazy than this kid’s blame-the-Jews nonsense.



 

Category: Crime, Religion

Comments

Comments are closed.