,
6 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
@fred_guttenberg There's one major reason: Far-right culture (especially neo-Nazis, who often have fetishes for collecting genuine WWII German memorabilia) often revolves around gun shows. As someone who covers the radical right, I have been attending gun shows for years for this reason.
@fred_guttenberg Neo-Nazi/white nationalist/nativist ideologies are also well known for their embrace of violence as essential to their ethos, an extension of their innate authoritarianism. Gun shows are a sublimated version of this violence.
@fred_guttenberg Recall that Timothy McVeigh more or less made his living for awhile traveling the country attending gun shows. He handed out copies of 'The Turner Diaries' to people who bought guns from him out of the back of his truck at gun shows.
@fred_guttenberg As that example suggests, gun shows are actually open-air markets for illicit (often stolen) weapons out in the parking lots of the venues where they are held. Many neo-Nazis have felony convictions, so this is one of the only ways they can obtain them.
@fred_guttenberg This is part of the big picture here, Fred. The radicalization of young men by the extremist right is the ideological fuel for these shootings. Young Mr. Cruz was himself a radicalized alt-righter. It's not just the guns that are the problem.
vice.com/en_us/article/…
vice.com/en_us/article/…
