An attorney for Hunter Biden said government prosecutors could not be taken at their word after he said they misrepresented sawdust as cocaine.
In a 22-page motion to compel discovery in the gun case against Biden, lawyer Abbe Lowell said the prosecution had not fulfilled its burden to turn over documents.
"The prosecution's latest filing amplifies why Mr. Biden and the Court cannot take the prosecution's assertions concerning its discovery production or what that discovery reveals at face value," Lowell declared before calling photographic evidence into doubt.
"The prosecution is flat out wrong — both that Mr. Biden 'took' this photograph and in claiming that it depicts 'cocaine,'" Lowell added in Tuesday's filing. "Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of discovery confirms, this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and it was sent to Mr. Biden, not vice versa."
According to the motion, the photograph had been provided by Biden's then-psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow.
"The message accompanying that photo was meant to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction," the filing continued. "Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice."
The Justice Department has also claimed that cocaine was found on Biden's gun holster in charging documents.
An informant who made derogatory claims about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter was recently arrested by the FBI after a grand jury charged him with false statements and obstruction.
Alexander Smirnov, who was identified as a confidential human source in the investigation, was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
According to the indictment, Smirnov falsely claimed to FBI agents that executives at the Ukrainian industrial company Burisma told him they hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems," at a time when Biden was vice president and bribed both of them for their efforts.
At the time, Biden had been instrumental in pressuring Ukraine to remove prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, which Republicans have claimed was to prevent an investigation of Burisma. But this has been repeatedly debunked; Biden was acting in line with U.S. policy, Shokin was not planning to investigate Burisma, and international observers had accused him of corruption.
Two rabbis sat down for dinner at Chabad Jewish Center in Pensacola, Fla.
The air on this July evening was warm and tranquil. A sense of peace filled the kitchen where the men shared their meal.
Suddenly, something crashed through the window, sending glass flying. The rabbis rushed over to investigate. Scrawled on the brick that lay on their floor: a swastika and the words “No Jews.”
Within days, local police arrested four white teenagers and collectively charged them with 18 felonies — not only in connection to the brick-throwing incident, but also for bigoted attacks on two area synagogues, a mosque and a Masonic lodge.
The group’s reputed ringleader, 17-year-old Waylon Fowler, initially denied responsibility. But he later admitted to an Escambia County sheriff’s deputy that he threw the brick. Fowler is also accused of throwing another brick — marked with swastikas, “SS” symbols and the words “Death to k----” — through the bathroom window at Temple Beth El.
That could have been the end of Fowler’s hate-filled story — the saga of a misguided boy and his friends who, when caught red-handed, vowed to right their ways.
Instead, the boys began taking an ever-darker path that, in their vision for America, includes a revolution leading to the collapse of the United States and a race war that drives Black people, Jews and LGBTQ+ people out of future whites-only homelands.
It’s a vision that has attracted young neo-Nazis across the country.
Raw Story spent four months investigating the 2119 Blood and Soil Crew, a nationwide network of teenage Nazis. The investigation revealed that Fowler now ranks among the leaders of the network.
In recent months, 2119 members have waged a campaign of targeted terror aimed at Jews, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people and leftists. Their targets include Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas and California. In mid-November, 2119’s official Telegram channel suggested the group had expanded to 21 states.
The 2119 gang’s rise as a clandestine network of teenagers who promote and carry out acts of antisemitic and racist violence hasn’t been organic. The group has undertaken a concerted marketing strategy of recruiting children by appealing to their interests, such as online gaming and skateboarding.
Nazi youth associated with 2119 are now under investigation by the FBI, Raw Story has confirmed. The FBI is also actively assisting local police departments as law enforcement pursues crimes committed in the group’s name.
But this legal danger has only emboldened the Nazi teens. They’ve indicated even bigger plans for sowing hate and fear across the country. And they’re recruiting more and more disaffected children to their cause.
The group’s activity comes at a moment when social tension throughout America builds by the day.
Local crime spree, national emergence
Fowler’s neo-Nazi youth group first emerged in 2022 as an under-18 boys auxiliary to the burgeoning “active club” movement — a loose collection of white supremacists united by their interest in fight training, mixed martial arts and white nationalist activism.
After renaming itself Revolutionary White Brotherhood — some bricks that shattered Pensacola windows featured the initials “R.W.B” — the group resurfaced after the arrests of Fowler and his associates as “2119.”
The number is an alphanumeric code. Two represents “B” for “blood,” 1 represents “A” for “and,” and 19 represents “S” for “soil. “Blood and soil” is a slogan dating back to Nazi Germany that invokes a racial claim on land.
Using a newly formed channel on encrypted social media app Telegram, 2119 members gleefully celebrated Fowler’s deeds by circulating an image of the brick used in the Chabad Jewish Center attack. They fashioned Fowler a martyr, circulating a stylized image of him with boyish looks and tousled hair and peppered their communications with the hashtag #FreeWaylon.
The brick quickly became a symbol of action central to the group’s identity. Members in the various Telegram chats associated with 2119 often used the verb “bricking” and referred to themselves as “brickstas.”
A national leadership cadre that had been coalescing since 2022 had now shifted into high gear. Members shared unsettling characteristics: all white boys or young men in their mid- to late-teens who embraced extreme violence against Black people and members of other marginalized groups. They delighted in a catchphrase that encapsulates an extreme aspect of a segment of the hyperviolent, racist internet culture: — “total n— death.”
Other teenage neo-Nazis that gravitated to the 2119 banner steeped themselves in virulent hate and a paramilitary aesthetic that draws as much from the Irish Republican Army and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as the Third Reich.
A still from an October 2023 propaganda video displays 2119's paramilitary aesthetic. Source: Telegram
The exact size of 2119’s membership is unknown. But a source knowledgeable with the group’s internal dynamics said it numbers in the hundreds. While that figure could not be independently verified, Raw Story has confirmed at least 20 self-identified 2119 members that participate in group activities. They live throughout the country, from California to Texas to New Hampshire.
The white power ethos embraced by members of 2119 draws from a loose collective of extreme Telegram accounts known as Terrorgram. Together, they promote acts of domestic terror and destruction that range from mass murder to attacks on the power grid.
A steady diet of gore videos and images — a photo of nude, Black female body missing her head stands out for its depravity — and instruction manuals for industrial sabotage swirl amid unyielding racist discourse.
But while spectacular and devastating, those modes of violence — by the 2119 members’ own admission — rarely allow the perpetrators to stay on the offensive and effectively network with one another.
The 2119 teenage neo-Nazis have instead embraced what’s for them a more scalable and sustainable — although no less disquieting — model of racist criminal violence.
Considered in isolation, the attacks across several states might be classified as acts of youthful vandalism and criminal mischief. Juvenile perpetrators who police catch might expect lenient punishments — ones that could be expunged as they reached adulthood.
But by 2119’s acknowledgement, these acts are deliberately designed to terrorize Jews and Black people. They offer 2119 members high propaganda value with relatively low risk to themselves.
These attacks also provide 2119 a model for a continuous, insidious feedback loop of documenting crimes, incorporating footage into propaganda videos and recruiting new members. Newly minted 2119 adherents, largely from rural and suburban communities, franchise the brand by committing new crimes in the group’s name. The process repeats and metastasizes.
A post on 2119's Telegram channel in October 2023 documents the network's propaganda efforts in three different states. Source: Telegram
Internal communications reviewed by Raw Story indicate that group members believe their status as children gives them a critical advantage — the impunity to commit acts of targeted terror against innocent people, while laying the groundwork for a future that they hope will allow them to commit murder on a grand scale.
When asked why he wasn’t already killing Black people, one former 2119 member responded, “When the system collapses, that’s the plan.”
Rapid radicalization
The 2119 leaders’ ambitions are chilling and plain in their voluminous online posts.
Their actions preceding prior run-ins with law enforcement speak even more loudly.
Aiden Cuevas, one of 2119’s most enthusiastic promoters, was charged as a juvenile in Alabama with terroristic threatening. He exhorted his peers to assault Black people “to save the white race.”
Aaron Alligood, a longtime member from Georgia, said that he wants “total collapse to happen” and has spoken of this desire to “stick a pistol” in a Black person’s nose, using a racial slur instead of “Black.”
Noah Houran, a 17-year-old from North Carolina described as “a 2119 OG,” distributed the IRA’s guerilla warfare handbook and a sniper training manual on his Telegram channel and expressed approval in response to a news story about a house that was booby-trapped with explosives in anticipation of a police raid.
Mathew David Bair, a 34-year–old Marine Corps veteran who joined 2119 last year, has unapologetically advocated for assassinating judges.
Members of 2119 likewise glorify mass shooters as “saints,” said Emily Kaufman, the associate director for investigative research at the ADL Center on Extremism, an anti-hate organization.
Kaufman noted that 2119 members also display the influences of the most extreme violent faction of the white power movement — what experts call “accelerationism” — “geared towards recruiting youth.”
Accelerationism is a tendency within the white power movement that seeks to hasten the collapse of American society for the purpose of creating conditions favorable to the rise of white ethno-states. Accelerationists reject political methods for achieving the movement’s objectives.
One 2119 member — Alligood — directly endorsed accelerationism on Telegram in December 2022: “I want total collapse to happen.”
Racist and antisemitic intimidation
When the authorities released Fowler on bond around Sept. 1, Georgia-based Aaron Alligood hailed his freedom as a signal that 2119 was on solid ground.
“Good news, Waylon is out on bail,” Alligood wrote in a Telegram chat with an extensive audience of racist skinheads from as far away as Southern California and the Balkans. “And the feds don’t got a case on him.”
Fowler, the reputed 2119 ringleader, awaits trial later this year in Pensacola, having pleaded not guilty to all charges. His freedom appears emboldening.
Since September, 2119 members have allegedly committed at least three additional hate crimes, twicetagging buildings in Laconia, N.H. with antisemitic graffiti and defacing a Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Concord, N.C.
Raw Story has independently confirmed vandalism incidents in at least four different states during the past 12 months that incorporated 2119’s various monikers.
The group makes scant effort to conceal its criminal intent. An “action report” it published online baldly states: “Members/associates of the crew are known to have a militant/violent reputation, and embrace confrontation with political/racial enemies.”
Impatience with standard-issue MAGA activism
When voters elected Donald Trump president in 2016, most of 2119’s members were elementary schoolers.
But they came of age during a time when Trump, as a candidate and president, demonized Muslims, attacked transgender Americans and generally shattered democratic norms.
They watched many Republicans cheer the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and jeer subsequent congressional inquiries and criminal trials. And they have seen multitudes of conservatives, from community agitators to federal lawmakers, fully commit to culture-war attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Black history and even library books.
Raised on internet violence, racism and homophobia, the children who gravitated to 2119 helped build their own, unique communion of hate. They could be as extreme and unmoored as they pleased. They operated free from adult-led, optics-conscious white power groups such as Patriot Front or extreme MAGA movements organized around the cult of Trump.
Patriot Front, for one, “failed to make any change in a matter of 6 years,” Alligood complained on Telegram in December. He dismissed Patriot Front’s activism as indistinguishable from MAGA, adding that he encountered the group’s members at a Trump rally — and he was not impressed.
Now, in 2024, Trump is once again all but guaranteed to become the Republican presidential nominee.
But for 2119 members, it’s not enough to be MAGA. It’s not enough to just support Trump.
The 2119 children aspire to something beyond Trump.
For them, it’s about “activism” that spreads fear, if not outright violence.
National 2119 leadership on FBI's radar
Two 2119 devotees in particular have made direct action their calling card of intimidation.
Eight days before his 16th birthday, in November 2022, the FBI summoned Noah Houran at his high school on the North Carolina coastline.
The agents asked Noah about a video he posted that he claimed showed him burning an LGBTQ+ pride flag. They quizzed him about an online statement he made about plans to attend an unspecified rally.
The agents wanted to know if Noah’s online statements were merely his fantasies, or if he really intended to carry out an act of violence.
Anti-LGBTQ+ violence was cresting at the time. Hysterical rhetoric among conservative politicians and right-wing media personalities braided into a mounting harassment campaign aimed at drag shows. The protests drew far-right groups, sometimes armed, ranging from the Proud Boys to avowed neo-Nazis.
The hostile political climate spilled over into fatal violence on Nov. 19, 2022, when a shooter gunned down five people at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo. As an indicator of the legitimate concern about mass shootings targeting the LGBTQ+ community, the Club Q shooting took place only three days after the date Noah Houran reported to Aaron Alligood that he had been questioned by the FBI.
Noah Houran was a hiking enthusiast whose interest in nature extended to eco-terrorism. A Telegram channel Houran created in October 2023 served as a distribution hub for texts written by Ted Kaczynski, who died in prison last year while serving time for the murders of three people during a 17-year bombing campaign carried out from a cabin in rural Montana.
One of Houran’s posts displayed a photo of a shed built from salvaged materials that was captioned, “Here’s my Ted K cabin, built it about 2 years ago.”
A screengrab from Noah Houran's Telegram channel shows his interest in eco-terrorist Ted Kaczynski. Source: Telegram
Less than two months after Houran was questioned by the FBI, Aiden Cuevas announced on Telegram chat that he was in legal trouble, while reassuring his peers that “just in case they get my phone I took off everything affiliating with 2119.”
“I’m on probation for some bulls— charge of terroristic threat (by the FBI of course),” he said.
Cuevas, who in November said he was 18 years old, told his friends he would be serving a sentence at the Mt. Meig’s campus, an Alabama juvenile correctional facility outside of Montgomery.
Raw Story was unable to find any record of Cuevas’ case. It is likely sealed, as he would have been a juvenile at the time of the offense. But in January 2019, WBRC-TV 6 in Birmingham, Ala., reported that a juvenile in Madison County was charged with making a terrorist threat to Thompson High School in Alabaster, Ala..
Cuevas lived in Madison County, which surrounds Huntsville, more than 100 miles to the north.
An Instagram post, made in November 2023, appears to show Noah Houran dressed in camouflage and aiming a rifle. The firearm, with the exception of the scope, is blurred out. Responding to a commenter who said he was “afraid to show his gun,” Noah wrote that he would “rather not repeat 2022” — an allusion to his run-in with the FBI agents.
Raw Story confirmed Cuevas’ identity as a 2119 member who posted on Telegram under the screen name “Bozak” by matching biographical details such as his mother’s birthplace in the Chuvash Republic in Russia, and his father’s U.S. Army assignment in Japan.
'The fascist pipeline'
Mathew David Bair, a 34-year-old Marine Corps veteran from Pennsylvania, meanwhile, came out of the extreme end of the MAGA movement, having been active with the Proud Boys when they stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. He appears to be one of the few members of 2119 older than 18 years old.
After Jan. 6, 2021, Bair increasingly gravitated to an array of far-right groups that embraced national socialism more explicitly than the Proud Boys.
“The fascist pipeline is very real, as you well know,” Bair said. “I was in a direct pipeline chapter.”
A well-publicized fistfight between Proud Boys and neo-Nazis in June 2023 appeared to hasten his transition. By November, he began heavily promoting 2119 on his Telegram channel.
In a phone call with Raw Story, Bair confirmed he is now a 2119 member.
The difference between the Proud Boys and younger groups such as 2119, Bair said, is that the Proud Boys tend to attract older men who join to fulfill a need for friendship. The younger members of 2119 are more ideologically committed and less concerned about concealing their racist beliefs, he said.
He said he admired the 2119 members for their brashness.
“When these young ones, when they’re talking to their peer groups — to take the step and proclaim your viewpoint, even talking surface level, they might not mention Hitler, but they’ll say, “Have you read Mein Kampf?”
Bair described Trump’s supporters as a natural constituency for Nazism, while condescendingly treating them as if they are clinging to outdated political norms.
“Regardless of your opinion on Trump,” he wrote on Telegram, “his MAGA following incorporates a large number of people who would be our guys if they could break the matrix.”
‘An untapped market full of white children'
In recent months, recruiting children to 2119’s hate-filled cause has become a top group priority.
For example, in August, Cuevas praised a Telegram channel called Robloxwaffen Division — a coupling of “Roblox,” a popular online game geared for youth, and “Waffen,” the combat branch of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel, or SS.
Cuevas hailed the teenagers behind Robloxwaffen as “geniuses.”
“They are reaching an untapped market full of white children that could potentially change their worldview and get them into the movement just from some fun on Roblox,” he said.
In January, the creator of Robloxwaffen — a teenager known only by his Telegram nickname “Patrius” — posted a Roblox-generated scene that simulated the 1999 Columbine massacre with two avatars holding assault rifles while striking a pose between rows of bookshelves. While his age is unknown, “Patrius” has said he isn’t old enough to drive.
That hasn’t stopped the violent ideations of “Patrius” from becoming even more acute. Earlier this month he threatened to “bomb” a gathering at a skating rink to raise awareness for National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day — adding the obligatory disclaimer, “in Roblox.”
Aiden Cuevas posted a photo of himself in a Telegram chat in early 2023. Source: Telegram
Cuevas, for his part, counseled fellow neo-Nazi teenagers to immerse themselves in subcultures, such as skateboarding, where they can easily make friends.
“I myself choose to target younger whites, still in high school that are lonely and all they want is a tight group of friends to have fun with,” Cuevas wrote.
Cuevas reported that he met a girl who was skateboarding alone after his local skate park had closed, and “she thought the swastikas were cool and had never seen ‘Nazis’ before.”
He boasted that in the past three weeks he had met “4 young white men that have seen my flag and hung out with my friends while we [will] be casually racist and throw up Romans,” referring to Nazi salutes.
‘Death squad'
Since its inception in May 2022, under the moniker “American Columbian Movement,” the 2119 group has made propaganda videos a key recruiting tool — one they consider essential to their growth and the advancement of their long-term goals.
One shows 2119 members marching to an anti-abortion rally.
“Nat soc death squad,” the teenagers chant in a robotic drone, a reference to the “national socialism” of the Nazis. The children occasionally giggle during the bizarre video.
As recently as December 2023, Cuevas and two other young men dressed in skull masks and protested outside a drag show in Albertville, Ala. The event organizer reviewed Cuevas’ Telegrams posts boasting of his involvement in the protest, and confirmed that she saw the men there.
Another early outing for the members of what would become 2119 took place in 2022, when they attempted to disrupt a May Day cookout in Pensacola. The event was co-hosted at a local park by two far-left organizations, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Democratic Socialists of America.
“We were cleaning up,” Sarah Brummet, a Party for Socialism and Liberation organizer, recalled in an interview with Raw Story. “Some kids came tearing through the park. They were yelling something. We couldn’t really hear it.”
They only learned later from a video that the boys were yelling, “F— you, you f—ing socialist slimy little s—.” After the socialists left the park, the teenage Nazis left flyers reading, “Commies stay off our street.”
“It was like they were afraid to confront us, and they were making agitation for the Internet,” Brummet told Raw Story.
When the official 2119 Blood and Soil Crew Telegram channel launched in September 2022, the group began churning out content that positioned it as a digital-era Ku Klux Klan teen auxiliary.
An eight-second video clip posted on the channel in November 2022 included the caption: “Pensacola lads out on patrol searching for Antifas! We protect our community!”
In another evocation of the Klan, a 2119-connected X account published a video showing a flier affixed to a front porch support post reading, “Attention! You have been visited by the 2119 Crew. We are pro-white, pro-Christian national socialists; anti-communist, anti-woke, anti-Zionist.”
Aaron Alligood of Georgia has indicated in online chats that he’s been involved with 2119 since at least October 2022. He also immersed himself in the Terrorgram community, as 2119’s on-the-ground activities became more aggressive.
Alligood became close with both co-administrators of the “P.A.W.G. Ops” channel, an acronym for Primal Aryan Warlord Gang.
A cross-country runner whose father was the head football coach at Berrien High School in Georgia until last year, Alligood became particularly close with Skyler Philippi, one of the channel’s co-administrators.
Philippi called Alligood a “little brother.” Raw Story was unable to determine Alligood’s age, but a runner profile indicates that he is currently a sophomore in high school.
“Like I said, keep your spirits high and play s— smart,” Philippi counseled Alligood. “We will prevail. Be the little man to a big man Hitler would be proud of. Go start reading Mein Kampf tonight.”
Like other Terrorgram channels, the Primal Aryan Warlord Gang celebrated racially-motivated mass murder, valorizing the shooters as “saints,” and promoted attacks on the energy grid. When anti-fascist researchers attributed a fatal shooting in Slovakia to a member of the Terrorgram community, participants in the chat congratulated themselves.
An administrator of the Primal Aryan Warlord Gang channel celebrate a mass shooting in Slovakia. Aaron Alligood, a 2119 member, was a frequent contributor to the chat. Source: Telegram
Terrorgram has been publicly credited for spawning one mass shooter, and here was one of the administrators of a channel where Alligood was a frequent commenter claiming victory.
Alligood’s involvement with the channel came to an abrupt end in January 2023, when one of the channel’s co-administrators was arrested at his home in Rustburg, Va. for conspiring with two other white supremacists to commit a bank robbery.
Shortly after the arrest, the FBI seized Aaron Alligood’s cell phone and laptop, he recounted on a Telegram chat with fellow white supremacists several months later. Although there is no public record of the seizure, Alligood confirmed the incident in a recent interview with Raw Story.
Meanwhile, the 2119 members’ online extremism was also manifesting in aggressive behavior on the ground.
In March 2023, a handful of 2119 members showed up to counter-protest a celebration of International Women’s Day hosted by the PSL in Pensacola. There’s no indication that Alligood, who lived in Georgia, was there.
Brummet described the incident as “a marked escalation.”
“They came up and they started standing close over our members and they were yelling racial slurs,” Brummet recalled. “We were speaking to a lot of things we identify as major social problems and the role of the existing capitalist system in that. They were yelling, ‘F the Jews.’”
2119 members disrupt an International Women's Day celebration in Pensacola, Fla. in March 2023.
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‘Sounds like you fear the brick'
Following the arrests of Waylon Fowler and his co-defendants in Pensacola, Fla. for their antisemitic hate spree in late July, a gusher of local news coverage followed.
The brick inscribed with a swastika instantly became the group’s singular totem of power — an implied threat.
It also became a liability.
Alligood turned to a white power activist named David William Fair, who runs a separate white power group that is friendly with 2119, for advice. He confided that his girlfriend was concerned about his involvement in extremist activity.
Fair advised caution.
“I don’t want you in jail just as much as she don’t,” Fair said on Telegram. “Brick through the finance building is fun and all. But not worth your youth.”
Cuevas interrupted the heart-to-heart conversation between Fair and Alligood by posting a cutout of the brick used to vandalize the Chabad Jewish Center from the photo published in the Pensacola News Journal.
“Sounds like you fear the brick,” he quipped.
“I’m angry at the brick bc it got good boys put behind bars,” Fair replied.
“It rooted out the weak,” Cuevas shot back. “The others are out and will get thru it ez.”
Aiden Cuevas, posting under the screen name "Bozak bzk" valorizes an antisemitic attack by fellow 2119 member Waylon Fowler in an October 2023 Telegram message. Source: Telegram
Cuevas was likely referring to the Ferry brothers, Kessler and Nicholas. Kessler Ferry, Fowler’s 18-year-old co-defendant, admitted to a Pensacola police detective that he drove Fowler to Chabad Jewish Center.
Randall Etheridge, who is representing both Ferry brothers, told Raw Story his clients are fully cooperating with law enforcement, and that they were “ordered” to drive the Fowler brothers to the crime scenes.
Fowler and his younger brother have pleaded not guilty to all charges. His grandparents, with whom the boys live, referred Raw Story’s questions to their attorney, who declined to comment.
When another member chat asked about 2119, David Fair felt compelled to vouch for the members while also attempting to shield them from the consequences of the alleged crimes in Pensacola.
In an audio recording obtained by Raw Story, Fair identified “Bozak,” who is Cuevas, and “AllenWrench,” who is Alligood, along with “Constantine,” who remains unidentified, as “guys inside” 2119.
Fair opined that 2119’s critics were “insecure,” adding a homophobic slur. They might be “hooligans” who spray-painted swastikas, he said. But so what?
In the recording, Fair acknowledged the alleged crimes in Pensacola, but attempted to insulate the national 2119 leadership from them.
“You know, that was from a local crew of boys that did something objectively stupid, and it shouldn’t have happened,” Fair said. “But that’s not really something on the crew.”
David Fair, the leader of Southern Sons Active Club, discusses 2119 on a Telegram chat for racist skinheads in late 2023.
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Multiple comments on Telegram show that “Constantine,” Alligood and Noah Houran were involved in assessing prospective members to determine if they were suitable material for 2119.
Chatting online with other extremists in early December, Alligood claimed to be on “house arrest.”
Reached by Raw Story for this story, Alligood initially claimed he quit 2119 after he was partially doxed by anonymous antifascist researchers. The researchers were able to identify Alligood because his mother posted a photo of him on her Facebook page posing with a deer he had killed, and Alligood posted the exact same photo on the official Blood and Soil Crew channel.
A Facbook post by a family member shows Aaron Alligood posing with a buck (left); the same photo, with Alligood's face redacted, identifies him with the "Georgia Chapter" on the Blood and Soil Crew Telegram channel. Sources: Facebook, Telegram
But when Raw Story offered Alligood evidence that he had continued to promote 2119 online and helped members network, he walked back his statement by claiming instead that he never did any “IRL,” or in-real-life, activities after he was doxed.
Alligood admitted to Raw Story that “house arrest” didn’t mean he was legally confined to his house, but rather, it was a way of saying that he had been grounded by his parents.
Commenting on Telegram in early December, Alligood said he was “looking forward to f---ing leaving this house so I can actually meet you n------.
“Oh yeah, it’s gonna be on,” he added. “Thinking about doing a country tour with 2119.”
When contacted by Raw Story in late January for this story, Alligood said he had decided to leave 2119 a couple days earlier.
At one point, Alligood said he would be willing to check in with Raw Story once a month to provide assurances that he continues to avoid any associations with other neo-Nazis.
“I promise you I’ll walk away,” he said. “I’m done with that.”
Antisemitic hate arrives in New Hampshire
The antisemitic vandalism spree in Pensacola had provided 2119 with a degree of notoriety, at least in Florida.
But 2119 members faced a question: How could they extend their brand across the country?
On the weekend of Rosh Hashanah 2023, six weeks after Waylon Fowler and his co-defendants were arrested in Florida, a man ambling down a central New Hampshire walking path discovered antisemitic graffiti on the abandoned Laconia State School building.
The graffiti included the “2-1-1-9” tag, a swastika and a crossed-out Jewish star.
It also said the word “f—,” followed by the name of a specific Jewish person in Laconia whose identity Raw Story has agreed to withhold. Following the person’s name: an antisemitic slur and the words “go to hell.”
Local news reports noted that a year earlier, graffiti depicting Nazi symbols and antisemitic messages had been found at the Laconia Public Library and a local park. A couple months later, police found antisemitic graffiti at the state school property.
The group has had a presence in New England since at least October 2022, when the original 2119 channel displayed a banner described as “a new flag for our folk in New England!”
City Manager Kirk Beattie told the Laconia Daily Sun that the recent graffiti in September 2023 marked an escalation by “calling out a member of the Laconia Jewish community.”
The official 2119 Telegram channel posted a video two weeks later that interspersed images of the graffiti at the Laconia State School and the earlier incident at the public library with images of members stepping on a Black Lives Matter flag and carrying an ammunition box. The video ended with the URL for the Telegram channel and the invitation to “join today.”
Law enforcement struggles
Laconia police have taken note that the graffiti at the state school included 2119’s Telegram address spray-painted onto a nearby water tower. That Telegram channel then displayed a video publicizing the crime.
Detective Eric Benoit, who was assigned to the case, reported that he could not determine who submitted the footage to 2119’s Telegram channel.
Telegram is designed in a way that makes it difficult for law enforcement to investigate user communications. For that reason, Benoit said, Laconia police aren’t putting legal pressure on Telegram to release the information.
Benoit reported that the investigation had so far uncovered no suspects, and he requested that efforts “be suspended pending new information or suspect leads.”
The following month, in October 2023, vandals spray-painted the “2-1-1-9” tag on a Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Concord, N.C. Two days after the vandalism was discovered, the official 2119 Telegram channel posted a link to a local news story, accompanied by the comment, “Hitting the news once again.”
Sgt. Gary Mearite, supervisor of the Concord Police Department’s criminal investigation division, told Raw Story that investigators have struggled to develop leads.
Currently, Mearite said, the Concord police are reviewing Telegram channels that have reposted images of the vandalism “and see if we can work our way back.”
“We’re still investigating,” he said. “It takes a long time.”
Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC), whose district includes Concord, N.C., expressed fury and frustration at the situation. She condemned the vandalism as an act that “shows an appalling absence of basic decency or empathy.”
“I don’t know if it’s social media raising the mirror closer to our faces, the lingering isolation from the pandemic, or something more sinister, but the rise in hatred in this country is apparent,” the congresswoman told Raw Story. “Hate is contagious. Those who catch the illness can only expel it onto others. They seek nothing more than to divide us and then spread their darkness in the void. They want us to hate each other like they hate us. We cannot give in, no matter how we’re provoked.”
In November, 2119 struck again in New England, spray-painting a swastika and the “2-1-1-9” tag on the Belknap County Democratic Party headquarters in downtown Laconia. The perpetrator glued fliers to the windows. One featured a swastika with the slogan, “Save the planet and your race,” while the other featured a quote by American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell.
On the same day as the attack on the Democratic Party headquarters, someone placed a bogus order to deliver pizzas to the home of the Jewish community member who was named in the earlier graffiti incident at the state school building.
Elected officials in New Hampshire have also condemned 2119’s attacks.
“The people who did this are domestic terrorists,” Mayor Andrew Hosmer toldTheLaconia Daily Sun. “They want to strike fear in you — not just our Jewish brothers and sisters, but anyone that disagrees with them.”
Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) posted on X: “This antisemitic vandalism is part of a surge in hateful attacks on the Jewish community across the country. There is simply no place for bigotry and hate in our society, and we must speak with one voice to condemn it.”
Shortly after the antisemitic harassment in Laconia, 2119 announced that Telegram had deleted its channel.
This hardly deterred them. They simply created a new Telegram channel, and more notably, the 2119 members turned to the broader neo-Nazi community for help promoting the group’s it so they could continue their propaganda push.
“I think the feds ordered our account deleted, with the recent incident in Laconia,” Alligood wrote. “Shout-outs of the channel would be appreciated.”
One member of the chat, unfamiliar with the incident, asked what happened in Laconia.
“Constantine,” the 2119 leader, replied: “2119 Member may or may not allegedly spray-painted the Democrat HQ and left a s— ton of fliers.”
He quickly added: “2119 takes no responsibility for the action taken.”
Feds catching up with 2119?
Tucked into the crevices of their bluster, profanity and grotesque racism, some of the 2119 members have quietly been expressing concern that law enforcement might be catching up to them.
“I’m surprised the feds haven’t been on 2119s ass since the whole Pensacola fiasco,” Alligood remarked to Houran on Telegram in mid-September.
“I’m sure they are,” Houran replied. “We just don’t know it yet.”
Detective Joseph Taschetta told Raw Story that the FBI has assisted the Pensacola Police Department in its investigation of the antisemitic vandalism spree. Likewise, Sgt. Mearite at the Concord Police Department said one of his vice officers contacted an FBI task force officer to obtain information about the 2119 group. And multiple outlets have reported that the FBI is assisting the investigation by the Laconia Police Department.
The FBI declined to confirm or deny that the agency is investigating 2119.
“We would also point out that the FBI investigates individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and other criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security,” a spokesperson for the FBI National Press Office told Raw Story. “Our focus is not on membership in particular groups but on criminal activity. We are committed to upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation solely on First Amendment protected activity.”
Bair, for one, is well acquainted with law enforcement.
In 2018, he unsuccessfully sued the city of York, Pa., and its police department for civil rights violations because an officer allegedly assaulted him during an arrest for disorderly conduct.
During his deposition, Bair told the opposing counsel that he had received multiple concussions while playing soccer in high school and while on combat deployment with the Marine Corps in the Middle East — all of which went untreated. He said he was court-martialed out of the Marine Corps for larceny and sale of classified materials during a deployment to Djibouti, and served one year in the Navy brig in Chesapeake, Va.
Following his military service, Bair said he checked himself into a sober living house in Colorado, and has been in and out of prison for domestic violence and burglary.
Bair, who specialized in demolition in the Marine Corps, told Raw Story that he likes Terrorgram for the “aesthetics.”
“It’s like what the Proud Boys did,” he said. “Nobody promotes the acts themselves, but here’s the information. Read it your goddamn self.”
A still from a video published by 2119 member Mathew Bair shows a flier on a chain-link fence that reads "Shoot your local judge." Source: Telegram
Asked about a video he posted showing a flier with the words “Shoot your local judge” that includes a URL to the 2119 Telegram channel, Bair suggested that the “judge” referenced on the flier was a kind of handgun — a Taurus Judge.
He responded with equanimity when asked whether he thought someone might interpret the sign as an endorsement for shooting a judge in a court of law.
“That’s all right,” Bair said.
Bair then volunteered that he lives close to where an anti-feminist extremist went to a federal judge’s home in New Jersey during 2020 and fatally shot her son.
A future for 2119?
In response to Raw Story’s reporting, some 2119 members have gone dark on Telegram.
Others, such as Bair, remain defiant. The recent exposure, which also includes a new reference page by the Anti-Defamation League, might cause 2119 to rebrand once again, or potentially splinter.
Bair told Raw Story he expects 2119 will be leading large Nazi marches ahead of the 2024 election.
That seems unlikely given the group’s philosophy of spreading hate while avoiding public scrutiny. And if evidence were needed that his words should be treated with skepticism, Bair mentioned his interview with Raw Story on his Telegram channel, writing, “There’s a lesson about misinformation and misdirection here.”
But now that 2119 is a known entity, history suggests the individual members could put on new costumes to evade scrutiny from law enforcement, antifascist researchers, the media and communities at large.
So don’t look for the young white boys and men steeped in terror doctrines to march under a banner reading “2-1-1-9.” Next time 2119 members show up on the streets of American cities and towns, it’s plausible they’ll have migrated to completely new neo-Nazi groups. And regardless of what mantle they claim, they’ll likely downplay their group identity while merging with other fledgling groups in a bid to project maximum force.
The 2119 members, however, appear unyielding as they continue to propagate hate, lionize those who attack the power grid and laud racially-motivated mass shooters.
* * *
About this investigation: This is the first in a two-part series about youth neo-Nazi organization 2119. The second part, published here, examines how parents navigate the challenges posed by online youth radicalization. A first-person account about the threats and harassment reporter Jordan Green has received as a result of his coverage of 2119 may be found here.
This project draws upon numerous interviews, primary sources and accounts of 2119’s members and activities, along with information uncovered by Appalachia Research Club, an anonymous antifascist research collective.
I began reporting on 2119 in an effort to expose its actions. As I investigated the group’s leadership and activities, and publication of a two-part project neared, neo-Nazi threats against me escalated. Online harassment led to phone calls and doxxing, which devolved into death threats and, most recently, visits to my home.
My ordeal began in November, when 2119 called me out by name in profane Telegram posts laden with racism, antisemitism and homophobia.
Soon, I began receiving threatening phone calls and voicemails. Someone took pictures of me with a telephoto lens, private investigator-style, and posted them online. A pizza delivery showed up at my doorstep, unrequested, courtesy of 2119. And earlier this month, matters culminated with six avowed white supremacists standing in front of my house, holding burning traffic flares, their arms up in Nazi salutes. One held a sign warning me of “consequences.”
Harassment and even death threats are, unfortunately, an occupational hazard for journalists on this beat. The leader of the neo-Nazi terror group, Atomwaffen, unhappy about being the subject of a ProPublica story, conspired with others to carry out a swatting attack — a tactic in which the perpetrators place bogus calls for the purpose of eliciting a law enforcement response to the victim’s residence — on journalist A.C. Thompson.
Other examples abound: Journalist James LaPorta, for one, learned his name was on a hit list in the possession of a neo-Nazi accused of plotting race war. In another case, a journalist received a death threat from the leader of a Nazi group called Feuerkrieg Division to try to discourage them from reporting on his group.
I first ran across 2119, also known as Blood and Soil Crew, while combing through Telegram chats in December 2022. They’ve been firmly on my radar since the spring of 2023, when I began to tally up racist and antisemitic incidents and attacks made in 2119’s name. Starting in late October 2023, my editor let me spend significant time investigating what — and who — 2119 truly is.
Almost as soon as they became aware of my reporting, the 2119 members responded with hostility and threats in a naked attempt to stop me from reporting on what had become a multi-state campaign of racist, antisemitic and homophobic violence.
Four days before Thanksgiving, an anonymous Telegram channel published my professional headshot, home address and phone number.
This wasn’t the first time such a thing has happened during my many years covering neo-Nazis, and other extremists. Online posts that include my personal information have been a semi-regular occurrence for the past four years. What was notable this time is that 2119 members immediately amplified this doxxing, highlighting it to like-minded extremists on their Telegram channel.
The accompanying note included a complaint from 2119 that “the bastard above” — me — had “been found out to be harassing our boys.”
Over the next two months, their tactics would become ever more extreme — and strange.
‘You're being watched'
Just before New Year’s Eve, I received a phone call from a restricted number at dinner time. Someone identifying himself as “Bozak” warned me that I was “being watched by international bricksters.”
I already knew by that time that “Bozak” was 2119 member Aiden Cuevas, but the caller hung up before I had an opportunity to confront him.
I understood this “bricksters” term as a reference to an antisemitic attack last summer in Pensacola, Fla., where another 2119 member, Waylon Fowler, threw a brick through the window of a Jewish center while two rabbis sat inside having dinner.
Written on the brick: a swastika and the words “No Jews.”
A couple minutes after the “Bozak” phone call, the same person made a transparent attempt at misdirection by calling back and leaving a voicemail. He claimed to be Thomas Rousseau, leader of the white power group Patriot Front, and again warned: “I’m letting you know that we have people on standby. You’re being watched. Quit messing with us.”
In early January, early on a Sunday afternoon, an unidentified 2119 member placed an order for a pizza delivery at my house. It’s clear a 2119 associate was parked down the street with a camera and a telephoto lens because, the following day, a 2119 member posted a photo on Telegram that shows me standing in my doorway.
The experience was unsettling, but their efforts at intimidation only confirmed in my mind that we had a story that was worth telling. Just as any investigative journalist would do in the course of reporting a story, I called the subjects to offer them an opportunity to be interviewed and to ask them questions.
I began calling 2119 members — and their parents. The response was an odd mixture of silence, defiance, confessions and pleas for understanding.
'We'll keep shooting'
But one particular interview — with Mathew Bair, a Marine Corps veteran who, at 34, is roughly twice the age of most of his fellow 2119 members — stood apart.
Bair readily confirmed much of my reporting about 2119’s activities and goals. And unlike some of his younger cohorts, he was unapologetic, even appearing to take pleasure in confirming some of the most unsavory aspects of 2119’s racist and antisemitic intentions.
As we came to the end of the interview, I dropped what I expected to be one of the most difficult questions.
I asked Bair about a video he had posted showing a flier with the words “Shoot your local judge” that includes a URL to the 2119 Telegram channel.
Bair danced around the question. He initially attempted to deflect by suggesting that the reference was to a specific firearm model — a Taurus Judge.
Regardless, he told me he wasn’t concerned about how a potential victim might interpret the message.
He might have left it at that — an ambiguous, vaguely worded threat shrouded in plausible deniability.
But instead he veered back to the more direct interpretation, mentioning that he is “close” to where an anti-feminist extremist went to a federal judge’s home New Jersey, in 2020, and fatally shot her son.
Then, he casually tossed out the phrase “just like you live in the Raleigh/Durham area, right?”
As it so happens, I don’t live in that area. But the implication was clear: I could be a target, too.
A couple of days later, on Jan. 21, Bair forwarded a message from a private Telegram channel complaining about my reporting.
“Jordan Green, you have a healthy respect for a Taurus Judge now, yes?” the message concluded. “Keep phishing for minors and we’ll keep shooting our local Judge.”
A Telegram post forwarded by Mathew Bair on Jan. 21, 2024 contains an implied threat.
One might be tempted to chalk this up as nothing more than online bluster. But gun violence directed at journalists is very real. This became apparent when shots were fired into the home of an online news publisher in Tennessee last April.
Concurrent with Bair’s warning, an anonymous Telegram account patronized by avowed extremists doxxed me again — this time with the photo of me standing in my doorway when 2119 sent a pizza to my home.
A couple weeks later, the account posted more personal information about me, accompanied by a note: “It’s not over, yet. More to come soon.”
They weren’t lying.
Around 5 p.m. on Feb. 10, six Nazis approached my house on a quiet, residential street in Greensboro, N.C. They held burning traffic flares as they raised their arms in Nazi salutes.
Photos show that at least three of the men are subjects of my reporting on extremism.
Among them: Sean Kauffmann, leader of the Tennessee Active Club, stood in the middle holding a sign warning about a “consequence” for exercising freedom of the press. Flanking Kauffmann were David William Fair, leader of the Southern Sons Active Club, and Jarrett William Smith.
The three men have a history of glorifying and pursuing violence.
Kauffmann and Smith met through Terrorgram, a loose collective of Telegram channels that extol mass shooters, while promoting graphic violence and wildly flagrant racism, in 2019.
Smith, then a soldier in the Army, advised Kauffmann on how to hide firearms from law enforcement when Kauffmann was worried that the police would take them due to a custody dispute with an ex-partner.
According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, sheriff’s deputies responding to a domestic violence incident in 2021 encountered Kauffmann waving around an assault rifle and later “received information that Kauffmann stated he was going to get into a shootout with police.”
Smith was arrested and charged with distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction in 2019, a couple months after his exchange with Kauffmann on Telegram. The government alleged that Smith shared information with others on Facebook about how to make improvised explosive devices and suggested to an FBI informant that then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) would make a suitable assassination target.
During his prosecution — for which he ultimately pleaded guilty and served 14 months in prison — federal prosecutors presented evidence that Smith stated in a text message that it was on “my bucket list to KO an antifa member” and advised other Telegram users on how to get away with committing arson against a Michigan podcaster.
The channel that helped organize the flash rally in front of my home followed with an eerie sequel. The subsequent post showed some of the protesters posing with a historical marker commemorating the Greensboro Massacre. The sign marks the site where a coalition of neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members fatally shot five civil rights and labor activists near a public housing community in 1979.
The caption in the Telegram post emphasizes the point that the shooters were acquitted during state and federal criminal trials by arguing that they acted in self-defense.
The message to me isn’t subtle.
Jordan Green is a Raw Story investigative reporter who covers domestic extremism.
U.S Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) is being criticized for wrongly identifying the suspect in last week's Super Bowl Parade shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, and also claiming he is an "illegal Alien." That mass shooting left one person dead and 22 others, including 11 children, injured.
Congressman Burchett made national headlines last year after the Covenant Elementary School mass shooting in Nashville, when he told reporters while standing in front of Congress, "we're not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals." Three nine-year old students and three staff members were killed by a shooter with two AR-15 style assault rifles and a handgun. He instead called for a Christian "revival."
On Thursday, Rep. Burchett posted to X the photo of a man, seated, with his arms behind his back and flanked by law enforcement officers.
"One of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters has been identified as an illegal Alien," Burchett falsely claimed on his social media post (screenshot below). The post has received 1.4 million views.
That man is not the shooter, not a suspect, nor an undocumented immigrant, according to reports.
On Thursday CNN reported three people, including two juveniles, had been taken into custody. The adult was not arrested and was released.
"Two juveniles were charged with crimes connected to the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl rally, authorities said Friday, as the city tries to recover in the aftermath of the violence," the Associated Press later reported. "A mother and popular disc jockey died in the burst of gunfire Wednesday as the parade and rally were concluding."
The man Rep. Burchett, and others, falsely claimed on social media was one of the shooters has been identified.
"The man in the photos is Denton Loudermill. He's an Olathe native, a father of three daughters, and a proud Chiefs fan. He's not a mass shooter," ABC affiliate KMBC reports, noting the man wants to clear his name. "Attorney and justice advocate LaRonna Lassiter Saunders is working on his behalf."
“Mr. Denton has received death threats over a lie, over misinformation,” Saunders said. "He didn't do anything wrong. He did not commit a crime. So please, run, tell that. Get the truth out there. Help us clear his name. Help us save his life."
As of the time of publication Rep. Burchett's post has not been taken down, nor has he made an apology.
Former federal and state prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, wrote on social media: "I urge this man, who is an American who had nothing to do with the shooting, to sue the hell out of Rep. Tim Burchett."
Someone who says they ran away from the mass shooting at the Chiefs parade on Wednesday says they saw someone else running: a GOP governor who frequently touts his support for firearms.
Earlier on Wednesday, between eight and 10 people were shot near the Chiefs Super Bowl parade, and two armed suspects were then placed under arrest, according to Kansas City police, the New York Post and the Associated Press. Chaos erupted.
In that chaos, one man reported seeing Missouri governor Mike Parson running scared.
Patrick Quaife, identified on his social media as a University of Kansas alum, posted his observations after escaping the gunfire.
"I just ran away from a mass shooting at the Chiefs parade where I saw the Missouri governor (the gun lover below) running scared for his life next to me with an army of officers protecting him," Quaife wrote, including a photo of the governor supporting "responsible, law-abiding gun owners."
"I am so sick of these NRA funded politicians," Quaife added along with a support for gun control.
"Governor & First Lady Parson were in attendance when shots were fired near Union Station in KC. They are safe and secure. State law enforcement personnel are assisting local authorities in response efforts. As we wait to learn more, our hearts go out to the victims... Governor & First Lady Parson want to thank the Missouri Highway Patrol, KCPD, and their security officers for their quick and professional actions."
Fueled by right-wing politicians and the powerful gun lobby, nearly three-quarters of firearm owners in the United States believe the enduring myth that a gun at the ready will keep them safer—but a new analysis offers the latest hard evidence that guns simply make life more dangerous and deadly for everyone.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) joined gun violence research group GVPedia to release an issue brief debunking the falsehoods pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun groups, which, looking to "counter the horrors of everyday gun violence in America,... masterfully constructed a narrative based on the myth of a 'good guy with a gun' using their weapon defensively to stop an armed assailant before harm can be done."
Listening to former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and the right-wing lawmakers who count on the gun lobby's endorsements, one could hardly be blamed for conjuring an image of a "good guy with a gun" who frequently stops a violent attack from happening—but the analysis shows how faulty research in the 1990s underpinned such claims.
Surveys at the time, including a widely-cited study by Gary Kleck and Matt Gertz, estimated that between 760,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGU) occurred annually.
But the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found two years later that fewer than 550,000 burglaries occurred in gun owners' homes annually, while Kleck and Gertz had estimated that "guns were used for self-defense during burglaries approximately 845,000 times."
"Burglary victims would have needed to use their gun defensively in more than 100% of cases, which is, of course, impossible," the issue brief reads.
Until the myth of the "good guy with the gun" is defeated, said Devin Hughes, founder and president of GVPedia, "Americans will continue buying firearms in the mistaken belief that those guns will make them safer, and gun violence will continue unabated."
"Accurate information is critically important in fighting America’s epidemic of gun violence. Just as important, however, is countering inaccurate information," Hughes added.
CAP also analyzed data on DGU from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which estimated just 70,000 such instances per year.
The group found that nine times as many people report being victimized by a person with a gun than being protected by a firearm. Respondents to two Harvard surveys taken in 1996 and 1999 were three times as likely to report being threatened or victimized with a gun than having used one to protect themselves.
In addition to putting a household at higher risk of an accidental gun injury or death, gun ownership also is not "the safest means of self-protection," CAP found.
NCVS data from 2007-11 showed that of the 14,145 crime incidents in which a victim was present less than 1% involved DGU.
Eleven percent of victims who did not use a gun defensively reported being injured during the altercation; almost the same amount, 10.9%, reported injuries in cases of the victim using a gun.
More than 38% of victims who used a gun defensively reported property loss, while less than 35% who defended themselves with a different weapon reported that property was stolen during the incident.
"The idea that one is not safe unless they are carrying a gun is perhaps the most personal and insidious myth constructed by the gun lobby," said CAP. "What does improve safety is stronger gun laws, improved clearance rates, and investments in community violence intervention programming."
The brief noted that people who intend to use their guns defensively are more likely to keep them "unlocked, readily accessible, and loaded, substantially increasing the risk of unauthorized access by a minor"—suggesting that a parent with a gun for self-protective purposes is unlikely to successfully use it for self-defense, and is actively endangering family members by having the gun.
"Similar to adult cohabitants, children living in a home with a firearm are at a greater risk for unintentional injury and death, homicide, and suicide," said CAP. "Moreover, their unauthorized access to household firearms can put those outside the home at risk, with more than 74% of firearms used in school shooting incidents obtained from the student's home or from the home of a relative or family friend."
Citing a number of examples of people in states with so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which say that gun owners have a right to use their firearms if they believe they are being threatened, CAP and GVPedia showed how, contrary to the narrative about the "good guy with a gun," most DGU cases "are harmful to society" and involve innocent people being killed due to the presence of a firearm.
"Emboldened by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' culture, too many armed individuals have used deadly force as a first response, rather than a last resort," said CAP. "More concerning, gun homicides in which white shooters invoked SYG after killing Black victims were determined justifiable by the legal system five times more often than when the situation was reversed, indicating serious racial disparities in the defensive use of firearm."
The group's research showed how the gun industry and its backers have used "the manipulation of fear, perversion of self-defense, and falsified statistics" to weaken "the public's ability to properly inform themselves of the risks associated with gun ownership," said Allison Jordan, research associate for gun violence prevention at CAP.
"In untangling the myth of defensive gun use, one thing is abundantly clear," said Jordan. "If safety is the goal, guns are not the answer."
Speaking at the press conference with the police in Houston, Osteen reminded the world that "God is in control," though he didn't explain how God was involved in this case.
"We have been here 65 years," Osteen told the press. "To have somebody shooting in your church — we don't understand why these things happen. We know God is in control. We are going to pray for that 5-year-old boy and pray for the lady that was deceased, her family and all and the other gentleman."
He admitted he was in a "fog" before saying, "There are forces of evil. The forces that are for us, forces of God, are stronger than that. They will go strong and do what God has called us to do, lift people up and give hope to the world."
Two others were shot at the church, one man in his hip and the 5-year-old child that the shooter brought with her.
According to a report from NBC News, a January 6 rioter who had climbed up on scaffolding above the mob was filmed brandishing a handgun and appearing to be firing into the air.
The report notes that the shooter, identified as John Emanuel Banuelos, had previously told investigators he was present at the Capitol and boasted that he fired a weapon, telling them, "I’m the one in the video with the gun right here," before adding, "Man, should I just tell the FBI to come get me or what?”
According to the new report, "Videos and photographs from the Capitol on Jan. 6showed him with what appears to be a gun in his waistband," before adding, "Now, footage released by another Jan. 6 rioter appears to show Banuelos firing the gun into the air twice during the chaotic scene on the west side of the Capitol, as rioters battled with police. Online sleuths also surfaced U.S. Capitol Police surveillance footage previously released in connection with another Capitol attack case that shows the man they've identified as Banuelos appearing to fire the gun. They found multiple other videos in which the gunshots can be heard."
The report states investigators pinned down the time the shots were heard at 2:34 p.m., just moments before rioter Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed as she attempted to climb through a broken window leading into the Speaker's Lobby despite warnings.
NBC is reporting, "Banuelos has not been arrested or charged in connection with Jan. 6; the Salt Lake City police had arrested him in connection with the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Christopher Thomas Senn in a park on July 4, 2021."
"One was an argument between the couple at a restaurant in Rifle on Jan. 6 where police say he was uncooperative and had to be removed from the business. The second incident happened Jan. 9 when Jayson allegedly attacked the couple's 18-year-old son and grabbed a rifle after the teen called authorities, according to court documents," the Sun reported.
Jayson Boebert is facing charges of assault, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, and obstructing a peace officer.
A Garfield County court hearing was scheduled for Thursday to make the restraining order permanent.
A New Mexico man recently pleaded guilty to committing several drive-by shootings, saying he was allegedly paid to do so by a failed Republican candidate in a state legislative election.
According to the Department of Justice, 42-year-old Demetrio Trujillo recently pleaded guilty to five different federal charges including conspiracy, election interference and illegal use of a firearm in the wake of the 2022 election for New Mexico's 14th House District. Trujillo stated that failed Republican state legislative candidate Solomon Peña commissioned him to carry out multiple drive-by shootings at the homes of several Democrats in Albuquerque as a means of intimidating them in the aftermath of the election, which Peña claimed was "rigged" against him despite losing by roughly 50 points.
" Trump just announced for 2024. I stand with him," Peña wrote in his last post to X/Twitter. "I never conceded my HD 14 race. Now researching my options."
Prior to his alleged targeting of them for the shootings, Peña said he approached the four Democrats on the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners in an attempt to push them to overturn election results. When that failed, he allegedly escalated the pressure campaign to include shooting at their homes. The DOJ stated that Peña directly participated in one of those shootings.
"On Dec. 4, 2022, Peña paid Trujillo to shoot a firearm at the private residence of a former candidate for elective office that Peña had chosen as a target for intimidation. On Dec. 8, 2022, Peña paid Trujillo to shoot a firearm at the private residence of another former candidate for elective office to intimidate the target from campaigning as a candidate," the DOJ's press release read. "On Jan. 3, 2023, Peña and Trujillo drove to the residence of a third individual who Peña had targeted because they were a former candidate for elective office and carried out a shooting to intimate the target from campaigning."
Trujillo has not yet been sentenced, but could face up to life in prison plus five years of supervised release. The DOJ stated he may also be liable to pay fines of up to $1 million.
Solomon Peña is scheduled to stand trial for his role in the alleged plot in June of this year.
In the wake of outrage over flashing his gun to a group of high school students, Indiana GOP Rep. Jim Lucas is facing growing calls for him to issue an apology. But according to Lucas, the problem is with the students, The Statehouse File reported.
Lucas was captured on video opening his suit jacket and flashing a holstered pistol to students visiting the Statehouse in Indianapolis to voice their concerns about guns violence.
"I'm carrying one right now," Lucas said before flashing the gun.
"See, nothing about that makes me feel safe," a student behind the camera said. "Nothing about carrying a gun makes me feel safe. It makes me feel threatened."
"Okay, those are feelings," Lucas shot back. "I'm talking facts. I'm talking facts."
In a Facebook post this Wednesday, Lucas responded to the outrage, saying he pities those "that are being indoctrinated to fear that which is their best means of self defense."
“People are also being indoctrinated to depend on government for their ‘safety,’ even when shown that government has clearly ruled that government doesn’t have the duty to protect us," Lucas wrote.
Lucas also defended his actions in comments to The Statehouse File.
“I just wanted to show that everyday people carry, and they are out every day among people that they have no idea are carrying, who are doing no harm, who are not threatening anybody," he said.
"They simply want to have the ability to defend themselves and their loved ones from people who aren't stopped by laws who aren't stopped by morality,” Lucas said. “And that's one of the questions I asked them … to please give me a law that I could submit and hopefully pass that will stop people that aren't being stopped by the hundreds of laws already on the books.”
An Indiana state lawmaker was captured on video opening his suit jacket and flashing a holstered pistol to shaken students who were on a visit to the Statehouse in Indianapolis to voice their concerns about guns and school shootings, according to The Statehouse File.
"I'm carrying one right now," Republican state Rep. Jim Lucas said, as he opened the right side of his jacket to show the weapon on his person.
"See, nothing about that makes me feel safe," a student behind the camera replied. Nothing about carrying a gun makes me feel safe. It makes me feel threatened."
Lucas interjected. "Okay, those are feelings. I'm talking facts. I'm talking facts."
"That's what this is about—" the student, identified by the Statehouse File as 17-year-old Makynna Fivecoats.
"Feelings," he asked.
"Yes it is," Fivecoats told him.
Lucas then said, "The people who want to kill you, don't care about your feelings though."
And Fivecoats came back, "Exactly, that's the problem."
The 30-second clip appears to be a snippet pulled from a longer interaction. A longer video of the 10-minute exchange can be found at TheStateHouseFile.com, which operates out of the Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism.
Fivecoats later told the outlet that the moment really shook her to the core.
“My heart sank to my stomach,” Fivecoats said. “I genuinely felt very unsafe in that moment. And I really just wanted the conversation to kind of end after that.”
Lucas made light of the interaction when reached by the outlet, saying he was "simply showing an inanimate object” to explain his defense of guns.
“People that want to have adult conversations, I think, need to be able to handle adult situations,” told the outlet.
He said they clearly weren't ready to handle the situation “if they felt intimidated by somebody, like myself, just simply showing them something that is protected by our Constitution.”
Last May, Lucas was caught driving under the influence when he struck a guardrail and drove against traffic on an Indiana interstate entrance ramp.
LOS ANGELES — Alec Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges over the death of a young woman who was fatally shot on the set of a budget Western, U.S. court documents showed Wednesday.
Baldwin, a producer and star of the film, was charged last month for his role in the 2021 death of Halyna Hutchins during the filming of period piece "Rust" in New Mexico.
He was holding a Colt .45 when it discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
A still from an October 2023 propaganda 
A post on 2119's Telegram channel in October 2023 documents the network's propaganda efforts in three different states. Source: Telegram
A screengrab from Noah Houran's Telegram channel shows his interest in eco-terrorist Ted Kaczynski. Source: Telegram
Aiden Cuevas posted a photo of himself in a Telegram chat in early 2023. Source: Telegram
An administrator of the Primal Aryan Warlord Gang channel celebrate a mass shooting in Slovakia. Aaron Alligood, a 2119 member, was a frequent contributor to the chat. Source: Telegram
Aiden Cuevas, posting under the screen name "Bozak bzk" valorizes an antisemitic attack by fellow 2119 member Waylon Fowler in an October 2023 Telegram message. Source: Telegram
A Facbook post by a family member shows Aaron Alligood posing with a buck (left); the same photo, with Alligood's face redacted, identifies him with the "Georgia Chapter" on the Blood and Soil Crew Telegram channel. Sources: Facebook, Telegram
A still from a video published by 2119 member Mathew Bair shows a flier on a chain-link fence that reads "Shoot your local judge." Source: Telegram
A Telegram post forwarded by Mathew Bair on Jan. 21, 2024 contains an implied threat.