Is the FSU Shooter a White Supremacist? Yeah, Probably…

Apologies to all my family and friends who have birthdays in April. Unfortunately, April really is the cruelest month. Not only did two of the most infamous school shootings in US history happen in April, but now we can’t even go two days without one.

Florida State University experienced a tragic shooting on Thursday when a 20-year-old student opened fire near the Student Union just before noon. Authorities received reports of gunfire at approximately 11:50 a.m., prompting an immediate shelter-in-place alert issued to the campus community. Students and staff quickly barricaded classrooms, and law enforcement officers from multiple agencies responded within minutes.

The suspect, later identified as Phoenix Ikner, arrived on campus in an orange Hummer (Jeez, what a douche canoe to drive.) before exiting the vehicle and beginning to fire a weapon near a busy section of the university. Witnesses reported hearing between 15 and 30 shots, with some students describing scenes of chaos as people fled in various directions. One student recalled watching the suspect exit the vehicle with a rifle, fire multiple rounds, and then retrieve a second weapon, a handgun, from the Hummer before continuing to shoot.

Law enforcement located and confronted Ikner shortly after the attack began. Officials say the suspect did not comply with commands to stand down. Officers opened fire, wounding Ikner, who was then taken into custody and transported to a local hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities confirmed that one of the weapons used in the shooting was a handgun originally issued as a service weapon to the suspect’s mother, a longtime deputy with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. She had purchased it from the department and kept it as her personal firearm.

So, let’s just ask the obvious question here. Are handguns typically something the families of ‘responsible gun owners™‘ pass around the dinner table like salt and pepper? Because unless the Ikners had a signed gun-sharing agreement taped to the fridge, that weapon wasn’t his. It was hers. And she left it accessible.

You would think a sworn law enforcement officer with nearly two decades on the job would know how to secure a sidearm. That’s not just a basic safety protocol, it’s law enforcement 101. But somehow, her son, a college student, had no trouble getting his hands on it. That raises more than questions. It screams negligence.

Police confirmed that two people were killed in the shooting, neither of whom were affiliated with the university as students. Six additional individuals sustained injuries, five of whom were shot and one injured while fleeing the scene. All are reported to be in fair condition as of the latest updates.

Thursday’s shooting marked the second time in recent memory that Florida State University has been rocked by gun violence. In 2014, a gunman opened fire inside the campus library, injuring three people before being shot and killed by police.

Some of the students who now attend Florida State also lived through another mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. Survivors of Parkland were on campus Thursday when shots rang out once again. For them, this wasn’t just another school shooting. It was the second time they’ve had to barricade, hide, and pray they’d live through it. That should haunt everyone.

As investigators search for a motive, it’s becoming harder to ignore the trail this shooter left behind. Phoenix Ikner wasn’t some anonymous figure on campus. He had a documented history in political spaces, first at Tallahassee State College and then at Florida State. And not the kind of history that involves heated debates about tax reform. Multiple students and club leaders have come forward confirming that Ikner regularly pushed white supremacist talking points in political discussion groups. Not whispered hints. Not subtle dog whistles. Straight-up white nationalist rhetoric.

At TSC, he was reportedly removed from a student political forum after repeatedly crossing the line with far-right and racist views. When your peers in a political debate club, of all places, label you a fascist and ask you not to return, that’s not cancel culture. That’s a pattern.

By the time he transferred to FSU, he was already known to some as someone who brought the same rhetoric with him. Club members say he would toe the line in public discussions, only to cross it in private conversations after meetings. He wasn’t just airing controversial opinions, he was promoting an ideology. One that has been tied to violence again and again.

Authorities have not officially released a motive. But when someone with access to firearms, a record of extremist beliefs, and a grievance-heavy worldview shows up on campus with a rifle and a pistol, the pieces start forming a familiar pattern. This was not random. This was not unpredictable. And it didn’t come out of nowhere.

So, now we can add another loser’s name to the list of Nikolas Cruz of the Parkland school shooting, William Atchison of the Aztec High School shooting, Incel Prime Elliot Rodger of the Isla Vista shooting, Dylann Roof, and Chris Harper-Mercer of the Umpqua Community College shooting, just to name a few. It’s not trans kids, no matter what they try to tell you.

Speaking of which, cue the ‘thoughts and prayers’ brigade.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also chimed in, delivering the usual canned line about how there’s “no place in American society for violence.” That’s rich coming from someone who once shot her own dog in a gravel pit and somehow thought that made her look like a leader. No mention of policy. No commitment to action. Just another politician wringing their hands while dodging every opportunity to actually do something.

This isn’t a ‘thoughts and prayers’ moment. This is a national security failure. A 20-year-old college student accessed his mother’s law enforcement-issued weapon and turned a university campus into a war zone. If Noem can’t even acknowledge the systemic cracks that make that possible, then what exactly is she securing?

You don’t get to stand at the head of Homeland Security and act like your only job is delivering condolences. If your strongest qualifications are killing your own dog and offering prayers after every mass shooting, maybe it’s time to sit the next one out.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also weighed in, saying…

“Casey and I stand in solidarity and are praying for the entire Florida State community. We’re mourning the two individuals who lost their lives in this tragic attack, and we wish well those who are currently recovering in the hospital. This killer must and will be brought to justice to the fullest extent of the law.”

Sounds nice on paper. But here’s the problem, that’s all it is. Paper. DeSantis talks about bringing the “killer to justice” like that’s the end of the conversation. Like, locking up the shooter fixes everything. Meanwhile, under his watch, Florida keeps gutting the very laws that might prevent mass shootings in the first place.

He backed permitless concealed carry. He supports lowering the age to buy rifles. He opposes red flag laws. He wants fewer restrictions, more guns, and less accountability, then acts shocked when the inevitable happens.

Prayers don’t stop bullets. Justice after the fact doesn’t undo trauma. And if you’re constantly making it easier to access firearms while refusing to regulate them with even the most basic common sense, you don’t get to act like you’re just a bystander in all this. You’re not. You’re part of the problem.

And finally, let’s go to Cheeto Mussolini himself, Donald Trump, who took a moment between photo ops with the Italian Prime Minister to acknowledge the shooting.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing… horrible that things like this take place.” Later, from the comfort of the Oval Office, he doubled down on the line he’s used after nearly every mass shooting of his political career, “The gun doesn’t do the shooting, the people do.”

What in the actual fuck does that mean? You can’t have a shooting without a gun. If you remove the gun from the equation, no one is going to rush on to campus and try to manually insert the bullets into their victims.

But that’s Trump’s favorite trick, the great American dodge. Guns don’t kill people. Doors do. Mental illness does. Bad vibes. Anything but the one tool that makes it all so efficient, so fast, so deadly.

He’s not wrong that people pull the trigger. But it’s guns that turn a bad moment into a massacre. It’s guns that make sure victims don’t walk away. And it’s his policies that help ensure those guns stay in circulation, with as few restrictions as possible.

Trump has made a career of pretending to care while doing nothing. After Parkland, he flirted with background check reform, then ran straight back to the NRA when the headlines cooled off. He talks about mental health, but slashed funding. He talks about school safety, but wants teachers armed like combat troops. He talks about freedom, but defends an industry that profits off the blood of kids.

So when Trump says it’s a ‘shame,’ he’s right. It is. What’s even more shameful is how predictable his response is. What’s shameful is that he could do something, ANYTHING, and chooses not to. Again. Because deep down, he knows the gun lobby likes things just the way they are.

(Sources)