Shooting at synagogue in San Diego

On Saturday, April 27th a gunman, named John Earnest, entered a synagogue in Poway, California. He started yelling antisemitic slurs and began to open fire with an A.R. 15-style gun. The Rabbi tried to talk to him but it was to no avail. The gunman fired again hitting the Rabbi in the arm. The shooting left three wounded and one dead. The gunman fled the scene. After the shooting, the gunman called the CHP to report his location and came out of his car with his hands up.

This shooting is one of the many shootings that has occurred in the last couple of years in our country. The day of the shooting was the last day of Passover and the 6-month anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The significance of the day makes the shooting even more tragic. After the shooting, the police began an investigation. They started with checking to see whether the gunman had posted a manifesto before the shooting on the online message board 8chan. The document that he posted to this website was filled with racist slurs and white nationalist conspiracy theories. It was very similar to the document posted by the gunman who was involved in the shootings at the mosque in New Zealand. The document also referred to a Facebook page with a live video stream which suggested that the author might have tried to stream the shooting in real time. John Earnest identified himself as the writer of the document. He said that he was inspired by the New Zealand shooting and the Pittsburgh shooting.  It is terrible that these horrific crimes are inspiring others to do the same.

After the incident, Trump offered his condolences and said that anti-semitism must be defeated. I personally believe that we are never going to "defeat anti-Semitism." However, I do believe that we can stop further attacks like this one from happening. There have been far too many shootings and it is time for that to stop. The 2nd amendment does not need to be revoked, but I do think that we need stricter gun control laws so that we can prevent independents like these from happening again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/poway-synagogue-shooting.html