Proper framing of "gun violence" as "stochastic terrorism". An important distinction.

[jmbar2]

Sorry, it's a Twitter thread, but an important one.

Most of the gun violence is "alt-right radicalized" terrorism. Needs to be framed as such. Here's the argument.

Link to tweet

[crickets]

1. Well said. It's past time to make the point loudly and repeatedly. (eta)

Thread unroll: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594792750154661888.html

Edited to add:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/1/10/934890/-

The stochastic terrorist is the person who uses mass media to broadcast memes that incite unstable people to commit violent acts.

One or more unstable people responds to the incitement by becoming a lone wolf and committing a violent act. While their action may have been statistically predictable (e.g. "given the provocation, someone will probably do such-and-such" ), the specific person and the specific act are not predictable (yet).

The stochastic terrorist then has plausible deniability: "Oh, it was just a lone nut, nobody could have predicted he would do that, and I'm not responsible for what people in my audience do."

The lone wolf who was the "missile" gets captured and sentenced to life in prison, while the stochastic terrorist keeps his prime time slot and goes on to incite more lone wolves.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/25/1807187/-DailyKos-member-s-term-stochastic-terrorism-enters-the-Mainstream-Lexicon-in-timely-fashion

Wired, no paywall: https://archive.ph/PgsPp - Jargon Watch: The Rising Danger of Stochastic Terrorism, Aug 2019

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/23/2112153/-If-Words-have-Power-then-the-Words-of-Stochastic-Terrorism-have-the-Power-to-Burn-it-all-Down

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-2022-ted-cruz-militant-rhetoric-1393449/

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. So "stochastic terrorism" is just gun violence? That doesn't make sense to me.

[Hekate]

3. Please look it up. It's an important distinction that takes down the "Lone Wolf" myth. nt

[Caliman73]

6. No. In the context of mass shootings...

Context is important.

In the context of the vast majority of the mass shootings, the perpetrators are White men who identify with the right wing of this country and have racial, sexist, trans and homophobic, and xenophobic ideas.

Certainly there are a lot of other types of gun violence, including suicide (which makes up the largest percentage of gun violence). There are gang shootings, drug trade or crime related shootings (which overlaps with the gang shootings), workplace violence, and domestic violence related shootings among others.

The poster is showing the person Tweeting about primarily those mass shootings that appear to be carried out with the intent of targeting the demographics that would identify with liberal ideology.

As the person Tweeting said,

LGBTQ people do not go to clubs that cater to the straight crowd to shoot them up out of some hatred of straight people. I am sure that some LGBTQ people have animosity about how they are treated, but it doesn't manifest in the threat of violent gun attacks on places where straight people congregate. Similarly, Black people don't explicitly target White gatherings to enact a Black Nationalist attack. The threat appears primarily to be one way.

Guns are just the easiest and most effective means by which to commit acts of violence with the highest probability of death and damage relative to the effort you have to put into carrying out the crime.

[Initech]

4. The Twitter account @libsoftiktok is a perfect example of a stochastic terrorist.

This woman commands over 2 million followers and daily posts talking trash about LGBT people. It's inspired people to send death and forced threats to hospitals and forced people into witness protection, and also doxxed and threatened people simply for showing LGBT support. That is a stochastic terrorist.

[crickets]

5. Kicking. nt

[Zeitghost]

7. "Most of the gun violence is "alt-right radicalized" terrorism"

I don't believe that is true. It's a major problem, but that specific claim does not match any data set I have seen.

[jmbar2]

8. There are many flavors of gun violence

Domestic abuse, murders, revenge, etc.

Stochastic terrorism with guns is different. It is perpetrated by a narrow demographic, utilizing America's lax gun laws, to terrorize and subjugate other demographics. And that is pretty unique.

Gay people aren't shooting up straight night clubs.

Black people aren't shooting up white grocery stores.

Latinos are not shooting up Walmarts.

Jewish people are not shooting up Christian churches.

The violence is coming from one demographic: Alt-right radicalized men

[Zeitghost]

9. I unerstand that

But the statement appeared to not be limited to a single type of gun violence.