We Are Helpless to Stop Mass Shootings—and the Right’s Lies About Them

Right-wingers have filled this void with a baseless narrative that Cook was, as the chairman of the College Republicans put it in a post on X with nearly two million views, “targeted for her conservative beliefs, hunted, and killed in cold blood.” To be clear, there is zero evidence, as of this writing, that Cook was targeted for her conservative beliefs. It’s not impossible, but it’s just as likely—or significantly more likely, considering that most extremist-related murders are committed by white supremacists—that the shooter targeted Umurzokov for being an immigrant. By far the most logical possibility, given that the shooter fired 40 rounds into a crowded classroom and hit 11 students in total, is that this shooting was not targeted at any one individual—that he wanted to kill as many people as possible at Brown, regardless of what they believed.

And yet, the right’s declarations of victimization, honed after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, have been immediate and relentless. One right-wing influencer wrote, “The left is going to target and kill every effective Republican they can find.” A fellow at the Heritage Foundation with almost a million followers on X wrote, “If you don’t absolutely destroy left wing extremists, they WILL be emboldened.” Republican elected officials joined in, with New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino writing that the attack “was perpetrated by the leftist activist and targeted Republicans.” Another post read, “This happened because Antifa (and all the like groups) wasn’t liquidated after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.… The time to respond harshly was months ago, but now is better than never.” Musk shared that last post, which has more than 30 million views.

At one point, my timeline on X was full—literally full—of nothing but these false claims, all from accounts I have never followed. Others have reported similar experiences. It’s hard to imagine such informational dominance not being the result, among other dynamics, of a clear algorithmic push (Musk runs X, after all). And the goal is to exploit this tragedy toward political ends, namely the repression of MAGA’s political opponents. This repression is the explicit aim of President Donald Trump’s NSPM-7 directive and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent memo ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” which is targeted toward those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” as well as “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”