Tangle - The Buffalo Shooting.

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

On Saturday, 10 people were killed in a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, by an 18-year-old white man. The violence took place in a predominantly Black neighborhood. You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's show, we are going to be talking about the Buffalo shooting. This is obviously a tough topic, but there is some interesting political discourse going on around it, as well as some policy debates as usual. Before we jump in, though, I want to start off with some quick hits. First up, today marks the busiest day in the midterm elections so far, with primaries being held in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. Number two, Congress will hold a public hearing on UFOs today

for the first time in more than 50 years. Number three, McDonald's announced that it was going to exit Russia. Number four, President Biden approved a plan to redeploy hundreds of ground troops into Somalia, reviving an open-ended counterterrorism operation that was ended by former President Donald Trump. Number five. Today, the trial of Michael Sussman begins. Sussman is the first case brought forward by special counsel John Durham, who charged the former Clinton campaign lawyer with lying to the Ten people were killed when a gunman opened fire. This was at a supermarket in a largely black neighborhood in Buffalo. Tonight, authorities say the alleged shooter planned it all. It started around 2.30 Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of this Topps-friendly

market store in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo. The alleged shooter wearing full body armor and tactical gear. On Saturday, 10 people were killed in a Buffalo grocery store by an 18 year old white man. The violence took place in a predominantly black neighborhood. The shooter posted a rambling disjointed 180 page justification for his actions, including his plans on how he would go about the shooting and his intent to target black people. 13 people his actions, including his plans on how he would go about the shooting and his intent to target black people. 13 people were shot, including an armed security guard who was killed while trying to stop the shooter. 11 of the 13 people who were shot were black.

The deceased victims from the shooting were Aaron Sal contagion effect, and for similar reasons, we also try to limit sharing information about A brief editor's note, Tangle does not name mass shooters because of the well-documented contagion effect, and for similar reasons, we also try to limit sharing information about the shooter and their alleged motives where possible. This shooting came amid a horrific weekend for gun violence in the United States. A Chinese man in Orange County, California opened fire inside a Taiwanese church, killing one person and wounding five others. Authorities say he was motivated by hate for Taiwanese. In Houston, two people were killed and three more hospitalized after an altercation at an open-air flea market turned into a shooting.

In Chicago, a curfew for minors was instituted at Millennium Park after a 16-year-old was shot and killed near the Cloud Gate Sculpture, one of Chicago's top tourist attractions. In Milwaukee, curfew was also imposed and a watch party for the Bucs NBA playoff game was canceled after 21 people were injured in three separate shootings on Friday night. The teen, who allegedly killed 10 people in Buffalo, had visited the grocery store before the shooting, the Washington Post reports. He live-streamed the shooting with a helmet camera on the platform Twitch, which took it down in minutes. He was decked out in tactical gear, including body armor. The weapon involved has largely been described as an assault weapon, though the gun was actually a semi-automatic Bushmaster XM-15ES rifle that had been modified

to use a high-capacity magazine, and the shooter had purchased the original weapon legally. The shooter also had a shotgun and a bolt-action rifle he received from his father as a gift when he was 16. The man bought the gun at the store in Conklin, New York in January, where he paid $960 for the rifle, a sling to carry it, and some ammunition. New York state law has some of the most complicated gun laws in the country. Handguns are illegal to buy if you are under 21 in New York, but no permit is necessary to buy a long gun. The state allows people to own long guns at age 16 and buy them at age 18. Gun laws in New York City are even stricter. Last year, the shooter had responded to an end-of-year project about post-graduation plans by saying that he planned a murder-suicide.

The response drew attention from law enforcement, who picked him up at his high school and took him to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. In his online screed, the shooter warned about the so-called replacement theory that Jews and liberals were trying to import minority voters to diminish the political power of white people. A similar extreme far-right ideology has been espoused by several mass shooters in recent years. The shooting has set off a debate about the culpability of political factions and preventative measures that could reduce the number of similar shootings. Below, we'll look at what the left is saying. The left argues that this shooting was founded in white supremacy,

and people like Tucker Carlson are responsible for espousing similar ideologies. Many say today's mainstream conservative movement shares ideologies with the Buffalo shooter. Some continue to call out the role easily accessible guns play in these massacres. Eugene Robinson said the victims in Buffalo were killed by white supremacy. Do not dare look away from the bloody horror that left 10 dead in Buffalo, Robinson wrote. Do not dare write off the shooter as somehow uniquely troubled. Those black victims were murdered by white supremacy, which grows today in fertile soil, nourished not just by fringe-dwelling racists, but by politicians and other opportunists who call themselves mainstream. The 18-year-old white man suspected of gunning down black people at a

supermarket in a black neighborhood was reportedly a believer in replacement theory, the notion of a vast conspiracy by Democrats and or Jews to achieve dominance by importing people of color to diminish the political power of white people. A poll this month by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly half of Republicans agree, at least to some extent, with the proposition that there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views. This isn't fringe stuff anymore, Robinson wrote. It's becoming central to the modern GOP's worldview. The replacement theory grifters know that they are stoking the anxiety some white

people feel about the nation's increasing diversity, and they must realize by now that some impressionable white people will take this rhetoric seriously and act on it. In his newsletter, Truth and Consequences, Michael Cohen said it's always about the gun. I understand why news outlets are focused on the racial aspects of this crime, Cohen wrote, and understand entirely why black Americans are terrified by what happened in Buffalo. They should be. White replacement theory puts targets on their backs, as it does Hispanics, Jews, and pretty much anyone who is not white. But, as is always the case with gun violence in America, it's about the gun.

The suspect legally purchased the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that he used in the shooting, even though last year he announced in his high school that he wanted to commit a murder-suicide. The state police were notified and they took him into custody. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation but still had no problem passing a firearms background check. The thing is that America is not the only country in the world with a vast number of disaffected adolescents, Cohen wrote. It's not the only country where kids conserve the internet and plumb the depths of racist and white supremacist ideas. It's not the only country where cynical politicians and media personalities pump dangerous and toxic ideas into the brains of their followers. It's not the only country where people suffer from mental illnesses. But this is the only country

that allows its residents to rather easily purchase high-caliber weapons. If America had stricter gun laws, he would likely be another local loser spouting racist vile on the internet. Because of America's gun laws, 10 people are dead. In Rolling Stone, Talia Levin said the shooter's views align with mainstream Republicans. He was an adherent of what is called the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that white people in the United States and white majority countries around the world are being systematically, deliberately outbred and replaced by immigrants and ethnic minorities in a deliberate attempt to rid the world of whiteness. It is a conspiracy theory that has inspired terror attacks in New Zealand and Pittsburgh, San Diego and El Paso,

an ideology that marries demographic panic with the idea of a cunning, nefarious plot. Reading through the document, what struck me hardest, however, was how very close the killer's ideas were to the American mainstream, the white hot core of American politics. Donald Trump's ascendance was a key marker of the force of white racial panic. From the moment he launched his candidacy, his overt racism set the party's agenda, and from the very first, his rhetoric directly provoked racist violence. Far from ebbing as Trump has ceased to be the party's sole center, however, the tide of white animus has become even more central to a new crop of congresspeople and candidates.

The Republican Party's embrace of the nativism has been more of a full-on dash than a slow slide, and it has been catalyzed by the vast constellation of right-wing media. Chief among these is the juggernaut that is Fox News. As a New York Times analyst revealed, the network's flagship primetime show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, has an obsession with replacement theory. In more than 400 shows the newspaper analyzed, Carlson evoked the idea of forced demographic change through immigration and other methods. All right, that's it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right criticizes the left for arguing this is the fault, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right criticizes

the left for arguing this is the fault of conservatives, pointing to what the shooter said in his manifesto as proof they are wrong. Some call out New York's counterproductive gun laws. Others say there is no examination of the left's ideology when similar shootings are perpetrated by far-left extremists. In the Washington Examiner, Stephen L. Miller said the left is blaming Tucker Carlson and doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.

Protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Journalists on Twitter and national news outlets took it a step further, pointing the finger squarely at Fox News and Tucker Carlson with the sole purpose of conflating the anti-Semitic theory peddled online with the very real concerns of an open immigration policy that right now is causing a historic influx of migrants across the southern border, as well as human trafficking and narcotics, Miller wrote. These concerns are shared within border communities, which themselves have seen a political demographic shift since the 2020 election, with Hispanics in these family communities turning against traditional democratic policies. In the alleged shooter's own manifesto, he slanders Fox News as being run by Jews and

part of the global replacement theory conspiracy, Miller writes. He never mentions Tucker Carlson. He also disowns the conservative movement labeling it corporatism and echoes the sentiments of the far left when it comes to eco-fascism. But none of this is useful to a media that sees this as an opportunity to regain the narrative on policing speech online after having their favorite toy in Twitter taken away from them. We've seen moral panics like this before in Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center's attempted takedown of heavy metal music, which they believe led to satanic ritual and murder, except this time the main

perpetrators of this are the legacy media themselves. In Reason, Jacob Solem said it's another reminder that legislators are banning guns based on functionally unimportant features. It turns out that the rifle, a Bushmaster XM-15ES, was not an assault weapon at the time of purchase, but it became an assault weapon after the shooter tinkered with it, Solem writes. The details of that transformation illustrate how arbitrary and ineffectual bans like New York's are. The manifesto says that the person who had this rifle before me made it compliant with New York law by installing a means arms magazine lock,

which fixed a 10-round magazine to the gun. The fixed magazine meant that the rifle no longer qualified as an assault weapon, but the shooter easily reversed that modification so that the rifle could accept detachable magazines, meaning it was once again an assault weapon when he used it in the attack. That difference has practical implications, since the ability to switch magazines makes it easier to quickly reload a gun, Solemn wrote, but other workarounds allow New Yorkers to legally buy and own AR-15-style rifles like the Bushmaster XM-15 that are functionally identical to prohibited models.

As long as the rifle has none of the other features on New York's list, such as a threaded barrel, a thumbhole stock, or a bayonet mount, it is not an assault weapon even if it accepts detachable magazines. Such featureless rifles are perfectly legal in New York, even though they fire the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity as the banned models. Possessing an unregistered assault weapon in New York is a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison. Given the negligible difference between illegal assault weapons and featureless models that comply with state law, it is hard to see what public safety payoff the state got by turning hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding gun owners into felons. In the American Conservative, Rob Dreher defended immigration restrictionism and distanced that ideology from the Buffalo shooter. It sounds to me like Tucker Carlson is complaining

about mass migration bringing into the U.S. a Democratic-friendly electorate that would weaken the voting power of conservatives like himself. What's wrong with that? Dreher asked. Don't liberals complain all the time about Republican moves that allegedly stand to weaken the voting power of blacks and other minorities? Do you remember the New York City mass subway shooting? It happened on April 12th, just over a month ago. The alleged shooter is a black nationalist who hated all white people, including Jews, and left a lengthy trail of hate messages online. Did we see a national outpouring of media examination of how the normalization of racialized discourse by progressive and mainstream institutions may have contributed to the alleged shooter's mindset?

Don't be silly. It was just one of those things, you know. The New York City subway shooting has more or less been memory-holed by the media, he added. We are going to be talking about this Buffalo shooter forever though. They're already trying to tie it to Tucker Carlson and the Republican Party. Those lies don't work anymore. Amazingly enough, many people are capable of understanding a news story like this without drawing spurious and hateful conclusions about entire classes of people. Me, I think the subway shooter probably would have done what he is accused of having done, even without the broader racialized left-wing discourse about how demonic white people are. I'm not blaming Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo for

the New York subway shooting, but we can see right now, all over American media, the finger pointing at Tucker Carlson, the GOP, and others on the right. Alright, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. First, I just want to acknowledge what I suspect many Black Americans are feeling right now. I remember the days after the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting and how the horror of that day reverberated through the Jewish community, the way it put so many of us on edge. I remember the first time I went to synagogue after the shooting and that little gnawing in the back of my head to check the doors and scan the room for any potential threats. I remember the gut punch of getting the

news from a city where I went to college and a synagogue that I had stepped foot in, and eventually learning that a friend and now Tangle editor had lost a family member in the horror. I remember the frustration and anger when I learned the Pittsburgh shooter was motivated by hatred of Jews and their purported orchestration of some immigrant takeover, the same theory that, by his own writing, motivated this shooter. There are few things as awful and unsettling as the feeling that there is a target on your back, and it's no doubt a feeling many black Americans have daily and are having in the most acute way this week. Americans of all colors and creeds should feel safe in their own country, and it is a travesty that so many don't. To get to the debate many people are having right now,

I don't think Tucker Carlson is responsible for this shooting any more than Rachel Maddow was responsible for the shooter who attacked Republican congressmen in 2017. Radicalization happens for many different reasons in many different contexts, but we should employ a consistent standard of individual responsibility. The document the shooter published, which I read, is a mishmash of racism, anti-Semitism, eco-extremism, and anti-corporate language. He criticizes Fox News for being run by Jews in the same breath he describes himself as being on the mild-moderate authoritarian left. Of course, I'm not saying we should absolve Tucker for his nightly schtick.

When you go on TV and tell millions of people that Democrats are trying to replace the current electorate with new, more obedient voters from the third world, as Tucker has, you open yourself up to legitimate criticism. Tucker espouses the great replacement theory on his show regularly, and he is not shy about it. I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term replacement, if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, he said once. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it. That's true. What really should be said about this garbage is that it's garbage. It is not true. Despite the mess that is our southern border, Democrats who hold

power in Congress and the White House generally support rather moderate immigration policies. Leftist activists have been harshly critical of Biden and Democratic leadership for how strict their immigration policies have been. And even if their strategy was to quote-unquote import voters, politically speaking, it'd be somewhere between extremely risky and very stupid. voters, politically speaking, it'd be somewhere between extremely risky and very stupid. Foreign-born immigrants are actually more socially conservative. Hispanic and Asian immigrants are increasingly aligning themselves with Republicans. Immigrants' impact on making the United States more left-wing is decidedly unclear. And I could make a good argument that importing immigrants from first-world European nations where left-wing politics and socialism often thrive would actually be the best way to thrust Democrats further into

power. The issue with Tucker's schtick, aside from being wrong, is that he knowingly creates fear and xenophobia among his viewers. Implicit in his work is the idea that immigrants from the third world, i.e. non-European, poor, or less educated, are obviously more dangerous, less productive, culturally incompatible, and are going to align themselves with liberals. It's the same thing many people thought a hundred years ago about Jews, Italians, and Irish people. Conservatives, including Carlson, are quite quick these days to point out the race essentialism on the left, the idea that the color of your skin or your nationality destines you to a certain outcome, but still slow to recognize it in their own ideas or ranks. Carlson's beliefs don't just belie a lot of data we have, they also create a logical

conclusion. Those people are a threat, and they must be feared and kept out. If that is your foundational view and you stumble across online extremism, the people to the right of Tucker Carlson, you are ripe for radicalization. These are a few of many reasons why I think this thread of Tucker's worldview is both misleading and dangerous. And in the case of the Buffalo shooter, there are plenty of other culprits to keep in mind. The researchers James Densley and Gillian Peterson explain why hate should not necessarily be viewed as the root of most mass shootings like this. From an academic standpoint, their research is rather clear. They write, These perpetrators aren't subject matter experts in politics, ideology, or religion.

Their understanding of the cause said to motivate their actions is typically shallow and contradictory, is simply convenient. Our dozens of interviews with perpetrators and the people who knew them do reveal, however, that shooters often have the same motivation, to cause as much death and destruction as possible so that a world that had otherwise ignored them would be forced to notice them and feel their anguish. Thus, the Buffalo Shooter live-streamed his actions. In other words, it's often about finding someone else to blame your despair on. In this case, the Buffalo shooter found the manifestos of other mass shooters online, and thus chose Jews, blacks, and immigrants. Of course, in this case, the Buffalo shooter found the manifestos of other mass shooters online,

and thus chose Jews, black people, and immigrants. Of course, it was all preventable. The most direct intervention would have been a more thorough engagement from friends, family, and his school when he first vocalized his threats. Over and over, we see perpetrators of violence like this leave a trail of clues about what is coming. Too often, the people around them fail to reach them to get them help to end their isolation or to warn the proper authorities so such people can't go buy weapons. Which brings us to the gun. As I've written here over and over, I'm far to the right of many of my friends here in New York City on gun rights. I've shot guns. I like guns. I believe Americans' right to own them is critical on top of

being inalienable. But, as with all rights, there are and should be limits. Even the readily right-wing New York Post editorial board said the shooter never should have been able to get his hands on the Bushmaster assault-style rifle used in the slaughter. They are right. That we live in a country where a kid can go to school in a hazmat suit, threaten to commit a murder-suicide after graduation, spend a day and a half in a hospital for a mental health evaluation, post a 180-page manifesto online under his real name, and then go legally buy a gun without being flagged in any system is absurd. There are plenty of reasonable concerns about red flag laws, which New York has and incredibly did not catch the shooter, but with every one of these shootings and the obvious signs missed by law enforcement or gun distributors or

family members, the push for stricter regulations becomes more and more appealing. At some point, the benefit simply outweighs the cost. All right, that is it for my take, and that brings us to our story that matters. The baby formula maker Abbott says it has struck a deal with regulators to restart production at its factory that has been tied to a shortage. On Monday, Abbott said it has struck a deal with regulators to restart production at its factory that has been tied to a shortage. On Monday, Abbott said it reached an agreement with the FDA to enter a legally binding agreement to take steps in response to violations found at its facility. If a court approves the agreement, it could begin production within two weeks, and then it would take another six to eight weeks for their products to reach store shelves.

The FDA's preliminary findings said Abbott did not establish a system of process controls to cover all stages in the prevention of contamination. CNN has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of mass shootings in which four or more people are shot or killed in the U.S. so far in 2022 is 198. The number of mass shootings in the U.S. in 2021 was 693. The number of cities that experienced an outburst of gun violence over the weekend was 8. The percentage of all gun deaths in the U.S. that are murders is 43%. The percentage of all gun deaths in the U.S. that are suicides is 54%. The percentage increase in gun deaths in the U.S. between 2010 and 2020 is 43%. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

That's 1-800-273-8255. That's 1-800-273-TALK. Or go to speakingofsuicide.com slash resources for a list of additional resources. All right. Ooh, we need this one today. Last but not least, our have a nice day section.

For the first time ever, moon soil was used to grow plants in a breakthrough test. Scientists say it is the first step toward making long-term stays on the moon possible. Researchers used samples of dust collected from the moon during the 1969 to 1972 Apollo missions to grow cress and were surprised to find the seeds sprout after nearly two days. I can't tell you how astonished we were, Anna Lisa Paul, a University of Florida professor who co-authored a paper on the findings, said. Every plant, whether in a lunar sample or in a control,

looked the same up until about day six. BBC has the news. There is a story linked to in today's newsletter. You can go check it out. All right, everybody. That is it for today's newsletter. You can go check it out. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, go to readtangle.com slash membership, subscribe, support our work, or click some of the links. You can support us on Anchor as well, or just go give us a five-star rating, or just share the podcast. Send it to a friend, tell them we're awesome, you like us, and spread the word. We're still pretty small, so we need your help getting it out there. We're trying to fix this crazy political world we're

living in, and every share counts. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. Same time. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.