Based on the assertions of Roger Hedgecock a right-wing radio show host, the meme that the five worst recent mass shootings were committed by registered Democrats is making its way through e-mail chains and social media. Hedgecock asserts, without providing any evidence or sources, that the Ft. Hood shooter, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Aurora Theater shooter and
Adam Lanza of Sandy Hook infamy were all “registered Democrats”. He acknowledges that Klebold and Harris (the Columbine Colorado shooters) were too young to be registered voters but asserts, again without providing any evidence, that Harris and Klebold’s parents were progressives or liberal Democrats. All of these charges are utterly baseless and perhaps do not even deserve a response. However, given the effectiveness of right-wing lies in saturating social media and duping the incurious (a far too numerous segment of the population), some more detailed debunking is in order.
To the best of my ability, I have attempted to research these claims with as much rigor as possible. If there is any evidence for or against my debunking, I welcome that evidence in the spirit of free inquiry. Let me also state that given that neither major political party condones mass shooter violence in any way, shape or form, and that all these acts are individual acts of violence that are not sanctioned by either elected Democrats or Republicans (at least not mainstream leaders in either party), the very notion that they are acting on behalf of a political party is itself problematic. This is not to say that mass shootings are apolitical acts, but rather it is to say that as political acts they may express an ideology (racism, misogyny, entitlement, psychosis, etc) but they do not in general express alignment with a political party or if they do it is not an association that the Democrats or Republicans would accept as legitimate (neither party wants to claim
James Holmes or Adam Lanza as a member in good standing, no matter what Holmes or Lanza feels about them). In any case, we can categorically REJECT the notion that any of the shooters in question has been shown to be a registered Democrat on a case by case basis.
1. Nidal Hasan (the Ft. Hood shooter) lived in either Virginia (his state of residence prior to being sent to Ft. Hood) or Texas, neither of which has partisan registration. Therefore the claim that he was a "registered Democrat" is false. I do not know if he voted or how he voted, but I do know that unless he was registered in a state in which he did not reside, that the claim that he is a registered Democrat is
FALSE.
2. Since Virginia does not have partisan registration there is also no way to tell whether Seung-Hui Cho was a Democrat, but again because there is no partisan registration in the state we can say that the claim that he is a registered Democrat is
FALSE.
(Update: A more obvious point is that Cho was a resident alien, not a US citizen, so he was not eligible to vote in the US)
3. The allegation that James Holmes was registered Democrat was based on a Breitbart blogger Joel B. Pollack, who found voter registration records for a DIFFERENT James Holmes who was about the same age. Alex Jones’ Infowars and other right-wing websites then dutifully repeated the lie without verifying it. It was later determined that the Colorado Theater Shooter James Holmes was NOT registered to vote, as evidenced by
this retraction: {Newly-released information on the suspect’s birthdate (which, as indicated in our initial report, was a slight mismatch), combined with new details Breitbart News has obtained about the suspect’s likely addresses, together suggest that the suspect may, in fact, not have been registered to vote.}. However, most of right-wing media continued to promote the lie without printing Breitbart sites retraction. The claim that James Holmes was a registered Democrat is
FALSE.
4. The claim that Adama Lanza is a registered Democrat has been suggested based not on any evidence that he was registered as one, but on the rather dubious claim that because Connecticut has almost 2 to 1 Democratic registration over Republicans, he was probably a Democrat. (Claim: "Adam Lanza, NewtownConn murderer. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about a 2-1 ratio in Connecticut. The odds are therefore that the Lanza family are (sic) Democrats.") This of course is a bogus argument to begin with, but even if we were to make the claim that a mass shooter’s political affiliation must be the same as the majority of the people in his area, we can debunk this foolish idea by taking this shoddy analysis down to the local level. Yes, Connecticut voted for Barack Obama, BUT the city of
Newtown voted for Mitt Romney. If we look at the results we find that Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama in Newtown by 7451-6784 votes or 51.7 percent to 47 percent. Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Linda McMahon carried the city over Democrat Chris Murphy by an even larger margin. Add in the other information we have that Lanza’s mother was a “doomsday prepper” and a home schooler in a Republican-leaning city and we can pretty well dispense with the erroneous assumption that Lanza must have been a Democrat
(UPDATE: According to at least one media source, Nancy Lanza was a registered Republican. The source does not provide a link, but the author of this article is seeking further confirmation). We can therefore claim that with no evidence to support the claim, the assertion that Lanza was a Democrat is not demonstrated and that in the absence of any evidence it is likely
FALSE.
5. Klebold and Harris of course were not old enough to vote and they had no apparent political affiliation. Allegations that they came from families of Democrats or liberal progressives appear to have no sources to substantiate those claims. What little ideology the boys demonstrated owed mostly to an
admiration for Timothy McVeigh not Ted Kennedy. Harris’ father was a retired Air Force pilot and Eric Harris wanted to join the Marine Corps. The boys lived in Littleton, Colorado a relatively conservative and affluent suburb of Denver. The claim that their parents were Democrats is UNSUBSTANTIATED. Any suggestion that the two boys were Democrats is demonstrably
FALSE.
Interestingly, Hedgecock and those on the far right have conveniently overlooked a number of cases where ideology is clearly right-wing. The acts below are instances of right-wing violence that are unequivocally committed by people who are openly hostile to liberalism. While this does not mean these killers are Republicans, it is quite clear that they are RIGHT-WINGERS and that they have far more in common with Mr. Hedgecock, Alex Jones and the other gun-toting conspiracy nuts on the right than with any evils associated with the Democratic Party or liberalism. In addition, to the list below is the obvious case of Timothy McVeigh, who I have not included because his crime was not committed with firearms. It was however, committed by a right-winger and the carnage was on a massive scale.
For example, on July 18, 1984 James Oliver Huberty, who told his wife
he hated “children, Mexicans and the United States” opened fire inside the McDonald’s Restaurant in San Ysidro, CA using a Browning P-35 Hi-Power 9mm pistol, Winchester 1200 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and an Israeli Military Industries 9mm Carbine (Uzi) – all legally acquired. He killed 21 and injured 19 before he was shot dead by police.
On Aug. 10, 1999
White supremacist Buford O. Furrow, Jr., fired 70 rounds with an Uzi-type submachine-gun inside the lobby of the Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, CA wounding three children, a teenage counselor and an office worker. He then carjacked a woman’s Toyota at gunpoint, dumped it behind a motel and murdered US Postal Worker Joseph Santos with a Glock 9mm handgun.
On July 27, 2008 Former U.S. Army private, Jim David Atkinsson,
who hated Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals, using a Remington Model 48 12-gauge shotgun, murdered two people and injured seven others inside the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN.
The day after Obama’s inauguration,
white supremacist Keith Luke went on a killing spree in Brockton, Massachusetts. His goal was to kill as many Jews, blacks and Hispanics as possible. When questioned by investigators, the deranged gunman who had stockpiled hundreds of rounds of ammunition, proclaimed that he was fighting the extinction of the white race.
A little over a month later, Donnie Baker,
a former Republican campaign volunteer shot seven Chilean immigrants in Florida. Those who knew him said he was obsessed with the fear that illegal immigrants were taking over the country.
In April of 2009, Richard Popalowski, a
white supremacist in Pittsburgh, shot and killed three police officers following a domestic disturbance call. He apparently thought that Obama was part of a government conspiracy to seize all guns, and he feared the government would take his guns away.
Later the same month, a Fort Walton Beach Florida man
who thought the Obama administration was conspiring against him, shot and murdered two sheriff’s deputies.
On May 31, 2009 Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his own church by a
right-wing “pro- life” gun man who decided to express his belief in the sanctity of human life by executing a medical doctor.
Eleven days later a
right-wing white supremacist and Holocaust denier walked into the National Holocaust Museum and killed an African-American security guard. Two weeks later, three Neo-Nazis were arrested for bombing a diversity office in Scottsdale, Arizona.
On April 20, 2010 a member of the
Sovereign Citizen movement was arrested after a failed attempt to take over a Tennessee county courthouse.
Exactly one month later, in West Memphis Arkansas,
Sovereign citizens Jerry and Joe Kane murdered two police officers before they themselves were shot and killed in the ensuing shoot out with police.
On July 18, 2010 Byron Williams, an angry unemployed man, was arrested by police after they discovered a car full of weapons and ammunition that he had
planned to use to kill progressives. He was on his way to the non-profit Tides Foundation Center, a favorite target of vitriol from Glenn Beck’s radio show.
On Jan. 8, 2011 22-year old Jarold Lee Laughner killed six people, including a judge and a nine-year old child, and wounded 13 others, including
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), using a 9mm Glock 19 pistol during a public meeting in a supermarket parking lot near Tuscon, AZ.
On Aug. 5, 2012 Wade Michael Page, a 40-year old
white supremacist and U.S. Army veteran murdered six people and wounded four others inside a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, WI with a Springfield XD(M) semi-automatic pistol.
