Klippenstein - Exclusive: The ICE Shooter's Politics

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-ice-shooters-motive

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On the off-chance the shooting wasn’t what it looked like, I reached out to people who knew the gunman, 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. Three who knew him since at least middle school agreed to speak to me on the condition that I not name them, corroborating their friendship with photos and other records. Their accounts paint the picture of someone with a vaguely libertarian bent who despised both major parties and politicians generally (including Trump) but who didn’t engage with politics beyond that. He preferred edgy humor, video games and the message board 4chan, all of which he became increasingly steeped in as he withdrew from social life as well as their own friendships several years ago, they said.

None of his former friends believed that the “ANTI-ICE” inscription could possibly be sincere, feeling such a serious political statement was anathema to who Jahn was. His humor was deeply ironic, often offensive and aggressive to the point of alienation.

“He was most certainly an edgelord, an irony guy,” one friend said. (Edgelord is online-speak for someone who likes to espouse edgy, nihilistic views). Asked about the inscription on the bullet, the friend said: “Josh was an edgelord who wanted someone to get blamed. I think he tried his best to write something goofy … to rile people up.”

Another friend showed me a Facebook post describing how Jahn had flooded his friends’ comment sections with rape jokes — “playful shock humor,” the friend said.

Jahn’s profile on the gaming platform Steam showed the vast amounts of time he spent playing video games, particularly shooters: more than 6,000 hours on Rust, 3,000 on Team Fortress 2, and 1,000 on Left 4 Dead 2. (He even found time to play three and a half hours in the past two weeks, the account shows.)

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