Researchers at the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) found that on January 8, an extreme right-wing user of a chan imageboard advocated violence in response to the potential gun control laws advancing in the Virginia General Assembly. CEP also identified several white supremacist Telegram channels that shared anti-Semitic sentiments, blaming Jewish lawmakers for Virginia’s expected firearms regulation. The channels portrayed firearms regulation as a Jewish plot to disarm the population of Virginia. White supremacist Telegram channels have previously advocated resistance or violence in response to potential Virginia gun control laws.

Some Internet users have compared the situation to the white supremacist book The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce. The plot of the 1978 novel begins with government mandated firearms confiscations and escalates into a race war that results in the genocide of non-white minorities, Jews, and liberals. Private gun ownership is banned in the United States under the novel’s fictional Cohen Act. The novel describes how Jewish-run groups enforce the ban by employing gangs of black men to invade the homes of white people—a scenario that clearly fuels far-right extremists’ anti-Semitic accusations again Jewish lawmakers in Virginia.

The Turner Diaries has directly influenced at least three terror attacks—in the United States, Norway, and the United Kingdom—resulting in the deaths of 248 people. The deadliest of these attacks was the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.

To read the CEP report The Turner Diaries’ Ties to Extremists, please click here.

To read the CEP report William Luther Pierce, please click here.

To read the CEP report U.S. White Supremacy Groups, please click here.