Mosque shooting in Christchurch, NZ

Early reports sound very serious.

And I mean…New Zealand???

It really can happen anywhere. My god.

As an expat kiwi this is shocking. If this guy really had an automatic weapon that’s going to raise a lot of questions.

Google tells me that you cannot buy anything beyond a pellet gun in NZ without a special police permit, and you can’t import a rifle or semi-auto weapon from outside New Zealand without registering it with local police.

Strangely my first though is that this is some sectarian thing.

What form of Islam was followed by the mosque?

Won’t speculate, but indications are that this was not sectarian in any way.

The shooter may have streamed his rampage on Facebook. Someone uploaded a snippet of footage and now I won’t sleep tonight. It is horrifying. If it’s real, there will be so, so many casualties.

Word of advice: if you’re on Twitter and search the word “Christchurch”, you might very much want to have your media filters set to not display disturbing media. Just saying.

This is going to be very, very bad.

There’s a full 16 minute video out there I haven’t watched, but have been reading the descriptions of it. It and the the guy behind it are both not surprising, and terrible at the same time.

Video Summary:

  • There’s apparently a live “Goodbye” thread currently going on that was started by the shooter over on 8 chan (not going there either).
  • He was saying internet memes in the long video before the shooting (“subscribe to Pewdiepie etc”)
  • He may have gone to more than one location (I think two Mosques were mentioned)
  • People can be seen pleading with him up close to spare them before he executes them anyway.
  • Someone tried to either escape or bum rush him (apparently he was blocking the exit), but he shot them just before they reached him.
  • Some sort of meme songs were played before the shooting.
  • He is supposed to have some sort of writing all over his weapon.

Yep, all kinds of white supremacist/anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim shit written all over his guns. Featured prominently: “14 Words”, which is basically white power code wording.

Apparently there has now been a shooting at a second mosque.

Sadly seeing more and more trust-able media with confirmed reports of a second shooter at another mosque, as Timex referenced.

Watched the ~2 min video on Twitter - it’s horrific.

The social media angle on this is sickening. We’re all living in a Black Mirror episode 24/7 now.

The number of dead is going to be way more than 6. Horrifying. Fuck guns.

Twitter has suspended the account of the person who’s name has been called out the most as the suspect. It’s the twitter account with all the guns and white power messages and iconography.

So yeah, that appears to be a shooter. No idea if it’s the only shooter.

yes we’re in shock really.

We’ve had occasional mass shootings, but not often and not with these apparent motivations.

Although if it was going to happen, Christchurch would be the place. Plenty of WS activity there and plenty of hate.

Yeah, sadly on twitter I’ve seen some folks who live there who’ve discussed other hate-related crimes there over the past few months.

PM Jacinda Adern: One suspect in custody, more than one site of violence. “I have no figures for deaths or casualties, but I can say that this is one of the darkest days in New Zealand’s history.”


I feel sick. Not at Rami obvs.