The alleged gunman, 18-year old Payton S. Gendron

Revolver – May 18, 2022

Last Saturday’s horrific massacre in Buffalo has left a community in shock. Ten people were killed and three more were injured when a gunman opened fire on shoppers at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The main suspect, 18-year old Payton S. Gendron, is currently in police custody and charged with 1st degree murder.

The FBI has been involved in the investigation, owing to the graphic nature of the crime and its apparently racially motivated nature, which renders it a federal hate crime. The FBI has so far interviewed the suspect’s parents and confirmed the existence of a white supremacist manifesto purportedly written by the shooter.

Given the FBI’s recent intense focus on white supremacist violence (real and imagined), the question inevitably rises of why the FBI was not able to stop this horrific crime in the first place. What, if anything, did the FBI know about the alleged shooter beforehand? Could this possibly been a case of entrapment gone wrong?

According the Washington Post, Gendron’s erratic behavior was known to state authorities at least:

At the end of his senior year, someone called the state police to report that Gendron had made alarming comments threatening to shoot up graduation-related events, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation.

Gendron’s statements were enough of a concern to authorities on June 8, 2021, that they took him into custody and then to a nearby hospital for a mental health evaluation, officials said.

One person familiar with the investigation said the teen had been asked at school about his future plans, and replied “murder-suicide.” It was enough to raise concerns, this person said, but not enough to take further as an investigation.

[Washington Post]

At some point, there was a failure in the chain of authority but where exactly it happened is unclear. Did state police and local mental health professionals fail to alert the FBI about a dangerous potential mass shooter or did the FBI fail to follow up on these reports? A local news article from 2019 confirmed that the local FBI actually had been watching potential mass shooters in the area:

Discreetly, FBI agents in Buffalo are evaluating and watching individuals they believe are on the path to a mass shooting.

Agents say the people they’re keeping tabs on – about six in this region right now – have shown credible signs of being a threat.

The effort, which involves mental health professionals and school officials, is usually secretive enough that the person being watched doesn’t know it.

[The Buffalo News]

So either Gendron was not among those being monitored, which would represent a massive oversight, or the FBI is impotent to stop violence even when they are monitoring potential risks, which would be just as concerning. A third, even more disturbing possibility is that the FBI failed to stop the shooter because they were actually pushing him towards his crime.

The FBI has a long history of incitement which Revolver has covered extensively. Basically, these incidents happen when the FBI’s demand for terrorism outplaces the actual supply, so the FBI has to groom people into becoming terrorists who they can then heroically stop at the last minute. Sometimes, however, the incited plots get out of hand and the FBI fails to stop them once they’ve been put into motion. Is it possible that’s what happened in Buffalo?

The Buffalo tragedy does have some other similarities with known incidents of FBI incitement. Earlier this year, 2 men were acquitted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as part of a group called “the Watchmen” after their lawyer successfully argued that the plot was actually concocted by an undercover government agent and confidential informant named “Dan” (emphasis ours):

Dan was now the Watchmen’s highest-ranking officer. He and Fox began planning in earnest, meeting up and spending hours on the phone. At one point, Dan encouraged Fox to “write a manifesto” of his belief system and his plans, but Keller, his fiancé, said she told him that was a terrible idea.

[Buzzfeed]

Of course, the existence of a manifesto by itself is not evidence of government incitement. Plenty of terrorists have written manifestos on their own without needing to be egged on by a government handler. It is interesting nonetheless that government agents have incited people under observation to write manifestos, that the national security state has sought to demonize right-wing ideas, and that the shooter allegedly had a manifesto full of right-wing ideas which liberal commentators are now citing as evidence of conservative complicity in the shooter’s unjustifiably evil act.

It’s also worth noting that the shooter used an AR-15 style rifle to carry out his monstrous attack. This is the same type of gun which Democrats have aggressively campaigned to ban over the past decade. As reported by the Daily Veracity, the shooter confirmed in his manifesto that he was actively attempting to bolster the establishment elite’s demonization of gun rights and legitimate political grievances.

Screenshot of the shooter’s manifesto via the Daily Veracity.

If Gendron was not actively incited by the FBI, he nevertheless played directly into their propaganda aims.

Late last year, the Biden Administration sought to draw parallels between parents protesting the teaching of CRT at their children’s schools and violent domestic terrorism. It’s bad enough that the national security state is expending any energy at all going after normal parents who just don’t want their kids taught that they’re evil because of the color of their skin. It’s even more outrageous when this misallocation of resources is going on while actual terrorists are able to carry out real attacks on American citizens.

For all the constant FBI talk about how “white supremacy is the number one terror threat”, you would think the FBI would have a better track record stopping white supremacist terrorism. Of course, the actual threat of “white supremacy” is completely blown out of proportion by the national security state for political reasons. White supremacist violence accounts for only a tiny tiny fraction of the violent crime that takes place in America each year, but in the terrible and rare instances in which it does happen, the FBI can only show up after the fact looking either completely confused or slightly suspicious.

Perhaps if the FBI spent less time inciting people to kidnap the governor of Michigan, less time monitoring parents who oppose “Drag Queen Story Hour”, and more time tracking people who publicly announce their intention to do spree shootings, ten people in Buffalo would be alive today.

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Courtesy Les Visible