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Sep 15 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: Trump has spread incitement of violence throughout the GOP. Here's my latest reporting on the growing danger from one of the ex-president’s darkest legacies motherjones.com/politics/2022/… #StochasticTerrorism
The temperature has risen ever since Trump and his allies went ballistic over the seizure of highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, with various GOP figures helping fuel the fire. Violence experts told me they’re deeply worried about the incitement motherjones.com/politics/2022/… 2/x Image
What’s so insidious about 'stochastic terrorism' is that politicians engaging in this form of rhetoric give themselves cover to deny responsibility for violence that isn't specifically predictable but that is likely to come from extremist followers motherjones.com/politics/2022/… 3/x ImageImage
Trump is the inciter in chief—but now he’s far from alone: Ron DeSantis, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, Ted Cruz and others have since used this ominous tactic, with even more extreme versions from Paul Gosar and other fringe Republicans motherjones.com/politics/2022/… 4/x ImageImage
The normalization of how Trump dehumanizes his “enemies” and stirs contempt and revulsion is particularly alarming. Violence research that I detail in the story shows how those tactics increase the danger motherjones.com/politics/2022/… 5/x Image

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More from @markfollman

Mark Follman Profile picture
May 29
It seems clear here that Dan Crenshaw does not actually understand what a ‘red flag’ law is. It’s not a criminal procedure—it’s a civil one. A judge determines whether to remove a gun temporarily from a person based on evidence that person poses a danger to himself and/or others
Shouldn’t a member of Congress first actually understand what a law is before taking a stand against it? @DanCrenshawTX
Politicians like @DanCrenshawTX and @GregAbbott_TX blame mental illness as the cause of mass shootings (wrong), grandstand about keeping guns away from troubled people—and then oppose a law designed to do exactly that. Kids were just massacred. End the BS. motherjones.com/politics/2022/…
Read 4 tweets
Mark Follman Profile picture
May 12
NEW: What are the warning signs of a potential mass shooter?

In this @WSJ essay adapted from my new book TRIGGER POINTS, I detail eight areas that prevention experts use to assess troubled people who may be turning dangerous wsj.com/articles/how-w… 🧵 1/x
Rage targeting women is a growing factor in mass shootings, as I further document in TRIGGER POINTS. Domestic abuse, "incel" ideology and other violent misogyny and extremism are rising concerns for threat assessment experts. [🎙️: Mark Deakins] 2/x
At the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, I dove deep with leaders of a specialized team who do key research on shooter warning behaviors. I call them the "new mindhunters," as their profiling work is distinct from that of previous FBI agents who famously tracked serial killers. 3/x
Read 4 tweets
Mark Follman Profile picture
May 4
A growing method today for preventing mass shootings traces back in part to shocking violence by anti-abortion extremists and a little-known attack on a US Supreme Court justice. I reveal that story for the first time in my new book, TRIGGER POINTS harpercollins.com/products/trigg… 🧵 1/x
Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun—who authored the 1973 opinion in #RoeVWade legalizing abortion—was targeted by violent extremists his whole career. On a quiet night in 1985, a bullet smashed through his living room window. Its impact would be fateful. [🎙️: Mark Deakins] 2/x
Six years later, as mental health experts and Secret Service agents pursued confidential research into notorious assassins, they needed help reaching the killers. Justice Blackmun’s chilling near miss with that bullet would be key. From TRIGGER POINTS: harpercollins.com/products/trigg… 3/x Image
Read 5 tweets
Mark Follman Profile picture
Apr 20
“School shootings season.”

That’s what some threat assessment experts call this time of year, as I detail in TRIGGER POINTS. The heightened danger is fueled by the "copycat" effect—and #Columbine, 23 years ago today, remains a big part of the problem harpercollins.com/products/trigg… 1/x
The extent of it is sobering: I documented more than 100 Columbine-inspired plots and attacks in the US in the two decades since the massacre.

“I’m thinking about doing my school the same way,” said one teen who planned an attack for April 20. “Everybody will know my name.” 2/x
Perverse myths about #Columbine went global—just as the offenders wanted. We all need to stop citing “Columbine-style attacks” and reusing shooter images, which further stirs troubled youth to plot violence and even travel to the school, including this recent chilling case: 3/x
Read 6 tweets
Mark Follman Profile picture
Apr 5
BOOK NEWS: My debut, TRIGGER POINTS, is out today. It’s the first ever to go inside specialized teams of experts who are preventing mass shootings, from K-12 schools to the FBI. Here’s a 🧵 about what you’ll find in the book hc.com/TriggerPoints 1/x
My work behind Trigger Points spans nearly a decade. I first began to dive deep into the field of behavioral threat assessment, whose core mission is to prevent mass shootings and other targeted violence, in a rather surreal setting: Disneyland. (🎙️: Mark Deakins) 2/x
We keep recycling big myths about mass shooters, treating them as totally insane people who just “snap” and attack out of nowhere. None of that's true. They plan, and they decide to kill. Also, there’s no such thing as a predictive profile of a mass shooter (🎙️: Mark Deakins) 3/x
Read 6 tweets
Mark Follman Profile picture
Jan 21
NEW: Chilling details continue to emerge in court documents about Oath Keepers' alleged violent plot around January 6. These guys had a lot of guns, and they were ready to use them in support of Donald Trump motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
2/ According to court documents, Oath Keepers spoke of having "inside information" for January 6 and called it “a do or die situation,” suggesting that a failure by Congress to throw the election to Trump could lead to “the declaration of a guerrilla war" motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
3/ The latest court docs in the seditious conspiracy case reveal other intriguing details, including allegations that Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes is yet another who tried to hide evidence from the FBI. (Notably, Rhodes also debunked the "antifa" lie) motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
Read 4 tweets

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