By: Fern Sidman

The United States has once again been thrust into mourning and anger following a school shooting that has shaken Minneapolis to its core. On Wednesday morning, a 23-year-old man opened fire at a Catholic school in the city, killing two children and injuring at least seventeen others, most of them students. The incident, which quickly drew national attention, has raised not only questions of public safety but also deep concerns about the persistence of antisemitic and extremist ideologies in American society.

Shocking antisemitic messages spotted on the Minneapolis shooter’s gun including:

– “Israel must fall,”
– “Burn Israel”
– “6 million wasn’t enough.”
– “ Burn HIAS (originally a Jewish resettlement org for refugees)

Via our colleague @RealSaavedra pic.twitter.com/NFUnkRNlDs

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 27, 2025

According to a report at NBC News, Minneapolis police identified the suspected gunman as Robin Westman, who was apprehended at the scene after a tense confrontation with law enforcement. While mass shootings have tragically become an all-too-frequent reality, investigators revealed a chilling detail: Westman’s firearm bore disturbing antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans, alongside names and references to previous mass killers from disparate ideological backgrounds.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) confirmed that Westman’s weapon was inscribed with hateful phrases and invocations celebrating figures who carried out mass violence. As NBC News reported, some of the scrawlings included: “6 million wasn’t enough,” “Burn Israel,” “Israel must fall,” and “Destroy HIAS”—the latter referencing the century-old Jewish refugee aid organization targeted by hate in the past, including in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.

The firearm also displayed references to notorious killers across ideological lines. Two names stood out: Natalie Rupnow, who last December murdered a staff member and a student at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, and Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

According to the information provided in the NBC News report, investigators are probing Westman’s digital footprint and examining whether he drew direct inspiration from these violent figures. Authorities believe the gun inscriptions may reflect an ideological worldview that revels in nihilism and hatred, where antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and anti-government resentment merge into a toxic amalgam.

In addition, threats against POTUS were also spotted.

Unverified photo of the potential shooter: pic.twitter.com/GaKdgq0Ikm

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 27, 2025

The shooting unfolded just after the school day began at the Catholic institution, where children had gathered for morning classes. Witnesses described chaos erupting as gunfire echoed through the halls, forcing students and teachers to barricade classrooms and hide in closets. Emergency responders rushed to the scene, transporting wounded children to area hospitals.

Two young students were pronounced dead, according to NBC News, while seventeen others—ranging in age from six to sixteen—sustained injuries, some critical. Parents rushed to the school after receiving frantic texts from their children, their worst fears confirmed as news of fatalities spread.

Police swiftly contained the shooter, preventing an even greater loss of life. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, speaking at a press briefing praised the rapid response of officers and paramedics but acknowledged the profound trauma inflicted on the community. “This is a day of heartbreak for our city,” O’Hara said.

While every school shooting prompts urgent debates about gun access and mental health, this case has drawn specific alarm due to the ideological markings found on the weapon. The ADL emphasized that Westman’s antisemitic writings mirror a disturbing trend documented across extremist subcultures online, where antisemitism often serves as the “connective tissue” linking various strands of hate.

As NBC News highlighted in its reporting, antisemitic slogans such as “6 million wasn’t enough” echo directly from Holocaust denialist circles and extremist propaganda. The targeting of HIAS is equally chilling; the Jewish humanitarian group has long been demonized by far-right conspiracy theorists who claim Jewish organizations engineer immigration to destabilize Western societies.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, told NBC News that the shooter’s gun “is a manifesto in miniature, reflecting the twisted ecosystem of hate that thrives online and inspires real-world violence.” He urged lawmakers and tech companies to act more aggressively in combating digital spaces where such ideologies metastasize.

The attack in Minneapolis is the latest in a series of violent incidents where perpetrators have explicitly drawn upon extremist symbolism and rhetoric. From the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh to the Buffalo supermarket massacre in 2022, antisemitic conspiracies have frequently intersected with broader currents of racial hatred and societal resentment.

The report at NBC News noted that Westman’s eclectic praise of mass killers across ideological lines—from white supremacists to anti-government extremists—reflects a disturbing “accelerationist” worldview. Accelerationism is an extremist belief system holding that acts of chaos and terror will accelerate the collapse of society, paving the way for a new order. It is a philosophy that venerates violence itself, regardless of the target, as long as it destabilizes the current system.

Law enforcement experts interviewed by NBC News stressed the difficulty of preventing attacks inspired by such diffuse ideologies. Unlike strictly organized movements, accelerationist violence is often carried out by “lone actors” who radicalize online, leaving few opportunities for preemptive intervention.

In Minneapolis, grief has quickly transformed into vigils and calls for unity. Religious leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim congregations gathered on Thursday evening for an interfaith service honoring the victims. Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman of Temple Israel in Minneapolis, speaking to NBC News, described the inscriptions on the shooter’s weapon as “a reminder that antisemitism is not a fringe hatred—it is central to the ideologies that fuel violence in America today.”

Political leaders, too, weighed in. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called the attack “a nightmare that never should have happened” and promised enhanced state support for both survivors and the investigation. Members of Congress demanded urgent hearings on the nexus between online hate and real-world violence, with particular attention to antisemitism.

Parents of students expressed fury and anguish when interviewed by NBC News, many demanding stronger school security and more proactive measures against extremist threats. “We thought this was a safe place for our children,” one parent said, “and yet hate found its way inside.”

As of Wednesday, authorities have not released details about how Westman acquired his firearm, nor whether he had prior contact with extremist groups. According to the information contained in the NBC News report, police are combing through his online accounts, including a YouTube channel allegedly linked to him, which featured images of the gun and paraphernalia with the hateful inscriptions.

The investigation will likely focus on whether Westman was acting entirely alone or whether he had online collaborators or mentors who encouraged his actions. The Department of Justice has dispatched federal agents to assist Minneapolis police, given the clear hate-motivated elements of the case.

The Minneapolis Catholic school shooting has once again confronted the nation with intertwined crises: the scourge of gun violence in schools, the metastasis of extremist hate, and the persistence of antisemitism as a driving ideological force behind violence.

As NBC News has reported, the writings on the shooter’s weapon stand as stark evidence of how hate speech, conspiracy theories, and glorification of past killers can radicalize individuals into unleashing carnage on the most vulnerable—children.

The tragedy leaves behind two young lives cut short, a community traumatized, and a country still struggling to reckon with how to stop the deadly fusion of firearms and hate. The inscriptions on Westman’s weapon will linger in the national conscience, a grotesque testament to the consequences of allowing extremism to fester unchecked.