Jon Lewis

‘It’s all performative’: why are shooters leaving messages on shell casings? The use of markings on ammunition is a new trend of shooters trying to ensure their messages are disseminated publicly, experts say

Research Fellow @jonlewis27.bsky.social was recently featured in an article from The Guardian that explores why some of the most recent acts of political violence exhibit the characteristic of leaving behind written messages on their weapons and ammunition.

FBI has been steadily diverting resources away from domestic terrorism investigations, decimating specialized units & discontinuing tools used to track extremism. the admin also gutted millions in federal terrorism-prevention grants. it's effectively abandoned the fight against homegrown violence.

I wish things were at least less stupid if they had to be so dire

The internet culture behind the Kirk shooting suspect’s ‘big meme’ The Charlie Kirk shooter’s engravings have been mined for clues of a motive. For those steeped in meme culture, they show only that he was “terminally online.”

Spoke with @drewharwell.com over @washingtonpost.com about Internet culture, memes and how the rush to pin an ideology on Robinson was foolish. Happy to be quoted alongside other experts like @jaredlholt.bsky.social and @jmberger.com in this! They really know their stuff.

Geolocating an Active Club 'Fight Night' in San Diego An orange wall helped Bellingcat identify the location of an annual far-right event attended by neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

Far-right fight nights are events bringing together combat fighting, extremist bands and merch, in an attempt to bring in new recruits and solidify existing relationships. @colborne.bsky.social locates the latest event for a California-based group: www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/09...

2 arrested after incendiary device found under news media vehicle in Utah Authorities in Utah say two men have been arrested on suspicion of placing an incendiary device under a news media vehicle in Salt Lake City

abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...

Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution, surges after Charlie Kirk killing Kirk was known for sharing extreme and provocative positions online and in frequent on-campus appearances. His killing has sparked messages threatening violence.

NEW from me: Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution from the right, proliferates after Charlie Kirk killing www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...

Pardoned insurrectionists are using Charlie Kirk’s death to call for civil war “Charlie Kirk's assassination pulled me out of retirement. More work must be done.”

NEW @motherjones.com: Pardoned J6ers are using Kirk's killing to call for civil war

Stewart Rhodes will rebuild Oath Keepers; Proud Boys call for "retribution"; & ex-insurrectionists are coming "out of retirement."

Experts fear they could incite others to violence. W/ @kieraevebutler.bsky.social:

“The singular message emerging from across the right is one of vengeance and retribution ... which only further increases the likelihood of retaliatory vigilante violence,” said @jonlewis27.bsky.social, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

Opinion | What the shell casings in the assassination of Charlie Kirk do – and don't – tell us There have been a string of shootings in the past year where the performance of online culture played a key role.

I wrote for @msnbc.com about what the engravings on the shell casings of Kirk’s shooter represent and where the references originated. Given what we know so far, they suggest a young man who had his brain fried by the irony poisoned, anti-social nature of certain aspects of online culture. /1

'The reckoning we need': Radicals threaten violence after Charlie Kirk killing

A must-read by Jordan Green:

“Some neo-Nazis are heralding Kirk’s death as an opportunity for accelerationism — the idea that a moment of heightened political tension can open the door to tit-for-tat violence, creating conditions for revolutionary upheaval.”

www.alternet.org/amp/violence...

The shooters who fall into this mold implicitly understand these internet dynamics. They seek an audience, but they are also acting out to get the world—especially the online world—to respond. “If you read this you are gay lmao” is a trolly, nihilistic thing to inscribe on a bullet casing, but the point is for people to see it, for people like me to write it down so that people like you can read it and feel something, be it shock, outrage, confusion, or sadness. The shooters may not have a coherent ideology, or even be particularly politically motivated per se, but they seem to know the ecosystem they are dropping their horrific acts of violence into. For some shooters, online communities—with all their irony-poisoning, shitposting, and feuding—are more real, or at least more meaningful, than physical ones. With their senseless violence, these killers are bringing a part of that networked, online chaos to tangible, life-and-death reality. They know that their violence will be flattened, picked apart, argued over, and, crucially, amplified by the justification machine. In this way, they will get what they’re after. The violence will continue.

said it yesterday but the people who commit this violence increasingly show us that they deeply understand how our information ecosystems process it. It appears to be part of the appeal for them. And yet the response doesn't really change. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean The inscriptions on bullets recovered near the scene of Charlie Kirk's murder appear to reference video games like ‘Helldivers 2’ and online furry roleplay, not a legible political ideology.

NEW: Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean

w/ @megannicolett.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/charli...

Most terminally online people who commit violence aren't connected to O9A or 764; these are fairly specific things and not just "violent people who spent too much time on the computer"

A lot of people who are generally smart and have good thoughts about internet culture have kinda filed 764 into just a more intense version of "internet culture" which doesn't really describe what they are and what they do, even if the internet is involved. It makes for misleading analysis.

“The crusade to silence any voices that may not conform to the hagiography has unfolded quickly.”

“Especially for people who already assaulted law enforcement on January 6 and were pardoned, there is certainly going to be an expectation that, if they answer the call again, they could have the same outcome," @jonlewis27.bsky.social said.

Experts see this as mostly more grifting from J6ers.

But that doesn't mean it's not still dangerous.

“They’re now being told that the same people who tried to steal this country away from you just killed Charlie Kirk,” @jonlewis27.bsky.social told me, "& someone has to do something about that.”

Jade Helm 15, Ten Years Later Ten years ago, the far right conspiracy world went bonkers over the supposed military takeover of Jade Helm 15. Turns out that they were for it the whole time.

In 2015, Alex Jones spent a year spinning paranoid stories of US troops planning to enact martial law, assist a Chinese invasion, and execute dissenters in "death domes."

In 2025, troops are in the streets, and Alex Jones couldn't be happier.

themikerothschild.com/2025/08/27/j...

Once upon a time, there were these groups that we called Anti-Government Extremists, who would become violently exercised over things like this. Wonder what happened to those guys?*

* They will be the federal police force now. They didn't object to tyranny, they objected to not being the tyrants.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MEME IS ACTUALLY FUCKING REAL NOW ARE YOU KIDDING

What's gone unsaid in all this talk about homeless people in DC is that so many in the Capital are veterans who are now having the military aimed back at them for the crime of being poor.

Worth also noting that the federal government made substantial progress toward ending veteran homelessness, and Trump has announced via executive order that he's planning to reverse all of that progress. The new plan is just incarceration. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

030: Did the 'Alt-Right' Win? feat. Hannah Gais | Posting Through It Get more from Posting Through It on Patreon

I joined @jaredlholt.bsky.social and @michaelehayden.bsky.social to talk about a question that has followed me since 2018.

Did the alt-right win and upend right-wing politics? I think the answer is: "Yes, but..."

(With apologies to Depeche Mode.)

www.patreon.com/posts/030-di...

Exactly one type of guy thinks WW2 was caused by British imperialism AND that the Bismarck was a cool ship AND stormed the Capitol AND puts Ph.D. in his twitter handle.

Look back at the history of 20th century White supremacy, and there's an extraordinary amount of analysis about which people with White skin count as White.

And when people start making fine distinctions about in-group eligibility, it's usually a bad sign.

If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you. I just learned that this defendant worked at the Department of Justice — NO LONGER. Not only is he FIRED, he has been charged with a felony. This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ. You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.

Less than five years after urging rioters to "kill" police at the Capitol, a former Jan. 6 defendant is working as a senior adviser for the Department of Justice, which has been dramatically remade under the second Trump administration. Trump supporters pull on a metal police barrier while police officers hold on to it on Jan. 6, 2021, outside the U.S. Capitol. NPR has obtained police bodycam footage from multiple angles of the former defendant and current administration official, Jared Wise, berating officers and calling them "Nazi" and "Gestapo." NPR located the footage, which has not previously been published, in a review of thousands of court exhibits from Jan. 6 criminal cases, obtained through legal action by a coalition of media organizations. The Department of Justice had introduced the footage as an exhibit in Wise's trial. NPR also obtained the transcript of Wise's testimony, in which he acknowledged that he repeatedly yelled "kill 'em" as officers were being attacked and tried to explain his actions. Wise was not convicted of any crimes related to Jan. 6, due to President Trump's order to end all Capitol riot prosecutions. A Department of Justice spokesperson said in a statement, "Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team."

Unless you were at the Capitol on Jan. 6