Orange County Gun Humper's Synagogue Massacre Was Stopped, So That's Good, Huh?

Thank heaven there aren't any other armed bigots out there.

A 28-year-old Irvine, California, man pleaded guilty Friday to multiple charges involving a plot to attack three houses of worship in Orange County, along with an illegal firearms possession charge that was unrelated to the planned murders. Rest easy, America, we're probably starting to run out of armed white supremacists by this point, don't you think?

The would-be Aryan warrior was arrested i n April 2018 after his parents heard him saying a lot of anti-Semitic stuff, including a wish to "get a gun and kill some Jews."

Orange police officers searched [the man's] apartment and found ammunition, anti-Semitic literature and "kill lists" of Jewish community members, which included well-known names in the entertainment industry.They also found notes referring to a synagogue in Irvine, a Greek Orthodox church in Irvine and a Russian Orthodox Church in Lake Forest, in the latter two cases over sympathies the churches expressed to Jewish people.

In addition, investigators found a breadth of internet searches of white supremacy ideology, anti-Semitic literature, and the effective range of a silenced .22 long range rifle.

We should add those were cops from the city of Orange, and that their complexion doesn't enter into it. Also, in addition to the target list and the animus against Jews and Orthodoxers, the guy had written out a list with the steps he would take toward "killing my first Jew."

The man's attorney, Brian Gurwitz, said there was no need to get too upset about all this, because

while his client's anti-Semitic writings were very troubling, Rose also wrote about having respect for Jewish people.

"They were the extremely disorganized thoughts of a young man suffering from mental illness," Gurwitz said.

We're inclined toward skepticism -- bigots often claim respect Jews for their keen sense of ethnic identity, which the bigots then say they wish whites would emulate. But maybe he merely wanted to shoot up the synagogue out of respect.

A spokesperson for the Orange County District Attorney said the man's interest in the synagogue and two churches went beyond his extensive internet searches; he actually visited all three locations in the months before his arrest.

He pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor civil rights charges -- a plea bargain down from felony charges of "attempted criminal threats" -- and to one felony count of having a loaded gun that wasn't registered to him. That charge wasn't part of the attack; it "involved a  separate incident in October 2017," according to the OC Register. The man was sentenced to serve 825 days in the Orange County jail, a year in residential mental health treatment, and five years of probation, with GPS monitoring. He also has to stay 500 yards away from the three houses of worship and "cooperate with the Orange County Probation Department regarding additional mental health treatment."

Also, in a Twitter discussion of the story, several sharp-eyed people were quick to point out that ".22 LR" ammunition is for "long rifles," as opposed to handgun ammo, and isn't it a shame that journalists assume it was "long range," and never mind the indication he was searching out information on how to do a sniper attack. Others pointed out a .22 is practically a peashooter and why is this even being treated like a serious threat, so please, let's not lose our heads over a teeny-tiny gun (this may be news to those who've died after being hit with 22 slugs, which still manage to be deadly 30 percent of the time ). We stopped looking at replies before anyone started extolling the virtues of a .50 caliber sniper rifle for superior range and killing power.

[ OC Register / NYT ]

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