Article: Did Von Brunn Kill Out Of Hate Or For Loyalty?

The title is simply a trick question. It is obvious that James Von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter, opened fire because he hated others. You don't try to hurt people without hating. You don't write what he wrote about Jews without hating others.

But what will be an overlooked issue is whether Von Brunn killed for loyalty? Von Brunn was a White Supremacist. He regretted the "browning" of America. He felt an strong affinity for Western Civilization and the Ayrian race. He felt that his race was being threatened in America. He also attended meetings of the American Friends of the British National Party. The British National Party is concerned with the purity of the UK as it sees the control of England's "indigenous" people being compromised.

What should be noted is that people like Von Brunn do love something. For Von Brunn, he loves his race. Von Brunn loves the group he most identifies with and that is not unlike many of us. Many of us have a most significant group with which we strongly identify and we do so because of the cherished ideals and accomplishments we see in that group. Therefore, it is easy to take any threat to or loss by our group personally. And as we take these things personally, we often last out at our group's nemesis.

This what we saw in Von Brunn's actions and writings. His targets were non-Ayrians and thus we properly regard him as a racist. And that is the cost when one's most significant group is one's race. This is why many of us don't make our race our most significant group. Most of us realize that no race has a monopoly on virture. But are we vulnerable to Von Brunn's hatred when our most significant group is something else besides our race?

Though Americans rightfully detest attacks against other races, we are often tolerant when the target is another nation or group and our military is doing the shooting. That is because, like Von Brunn, we lash out at perceived threats to our most significant group, our nation. Unlike Von Brunn, our targets tend not to be a particular race because the group we are defending is not a race; but that is what deceives us regarding the nature of our attacks. Does a nonracial target make our attacks any less hateful or prejudicial?

Certainly Von Brunn committed a hate crime just by taking guns into the museum with the intention of shooting people. But he was not just acting out of hatred, he was acting out of loyalty as well. His perverse view of reality made him think that he was defending his most signficant group, his race. And perhaps, we follow in his steps when we lash out even though our target is not a race. We might want to call it loyalty when our target is another nation or group; but as we have seen, Von Brunn could make the same claim.