Nazi influence on teenage school shooters
One of the few commonalities with school shooters from the 1960s to today is their idolization of nazi beliefs, writing, and symbols.
On Wednesday morning, a 17-year-old student opened fire inside the cafeteria of Antioch High School in Nashville, TN. He fatally shot a female student and wounded two others before killing himself seconds later.
While it first appeared that he deliberately targeted the female student who was killed, what is believed to be his social media account posted violent, racist, and antisemitic content. The writings include detailed plans for the shooting and reasons behind committing the attack, along with mentions of other school shootings. The attack was livestreamed on KICK, a platform known for the lack of content moderation and hate speech.
Police believe the 17-year-old in Nashville may have been in contact with the 15-year-old girl who opened fire inside Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI in December. Both teen’s social media accounts were connected on Pinterest, BlueSky, and Twitter/X. It will be difficult for authorities to figure out if they had direct contact on encrypted messaging or were part of private group chats on decentralized platforms like Discord.
A 50-page document posted on Twitter/X (owned by Elon Musk) contains selfies of what appears to be the shooter with far-right paraphernalia. He wrote about wanting to “take revenge” on society, praised Adolf Hitler, made statements against “race mixing”, and posted explicit photos from previous school shootings. His accounts also linked to “groyper” content—a term used with white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups—referring to young men who claim to be “involuntarily celibate” with violent misogynistic views. He wrote:
“I just couldn’t take anymore. I am a worthless subhuman, a living breathing disgrace. All my (in real life) friends outgrew me act like they didn’t f–king know me. Being me was so f–king humiliating. That’s why I spend all day dissociating.”
The document explained a need to "speed up" his original plan to commit the school shooting on Thursday and wrote that his goal was to kill “at least 10 people”. He wanted to use an AR-15 rifle and fully automatic Glock handgun. He also talked about using improvised explosives and flammable liquids (this is common for school shooters back to Cokeville Elementary in 1986).
On a Bluesky account linked in the document, a post before the shooting on Wednesday morning read: “Today seems like a good day to die.”
According to classmates the 17-year-old shooter was in ROTC and “smart person at the top of the class” and was “quiet.”
“I knew him personally. He was in my class and I didn’t think he was anything like that. I just thought he was a sweet quiet person, but he wasn’t.” - Antioch High School student
The ‘heil’ heard around the world
Just two days before this school shooting, Elon Musk made a gesture twice that is very similar to a nazi salute at the Presidential Inauguration. Regardless of Musk’s intent, shortly after making this salute (once to the crowd in front of him and again to the crowd behind him), the message “WE ARE F**KING BACK” was posted on a nazi channel on Telegram under a clip of Musk giving the salute.
Since purchasing twitter, Musk changed the rules to allow nazi content and ‘blue checkmark’ accounts for people to identify as nazi party members. Musk has also retweeted racist and violent messages. Just hours after Musk gave the salutes, the President pardoned violent white nationalist militia members who attacked the US Capitol.
The 17-year-old who opened fire inside his Nashville school posted white nationalist, incel, and nazi content. The images and content of his posts have the same symbols on the flags and uniforms worn on January 6. All of these actions embolden and empower people—including teens—who identify as nazis and white nationalists.
The praise and reach of this very public act should be a dire warning for anyone working in school security. Far right anti-government and white nationalist groups have discussed school shootings since the 1960s when James Mason—the godfather of the modern neo-nazi movement—wrote this essay in his book Siege:
“I just wanted out but they weren’t going to throw me out. So it was headed for confrontation. I was headed for Boys Industrial School, and was told this was a prison for boys. I wasn’t going to let that happen of course, so I made up my mind in 1968 - my father had all kinds of weapons at home - and I was going to take a 44 magnum, which was a five-shot revolver, go into the staff office and take out the principal, assistant principal, and two of the guidance counselors, then finally myself.”
Siege is a collection of newsletters and essays originally published in the early 1980s, in which Mason promotes a violent, neo-nazi worldview. The text, which has gained notoriety among white nationalist and anti-government groups, argues for the destabilization of society through acts of aggression and terror (like school shootings).
The hashtag “ReadSiege” was widely spread on social media with the “Unite the Right” movement following the neo-nazi march and attack in Charlottesville, VA.
Nazi influence on teenage school shooters
In December 2024, a 15-year-old girl opened fire inside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI. The Center on Extremism reviewed her social media profiles and found:
The shooter appears to have been invited into and participated in a Telegram chat in which Arda Küçükyetim, the Turkish neo-Nazi who stabbed five people outside a Turkish mosque on August 12, 2024, appeared to have posted his own racist “manifesto” just prior to his attack. A self-described “friend” of Küçükyetim shared a live link of the attack, and chat participants (including, we believe, the Madison shooter) commented on the “success” of the stabbing spree.
Her TikTok account posted a range of very generic white supremacist and antisemitic memes (including Nazi images and racist “statistics”) with a bio including the phrase “Totally normal day” –wording often used by racist or white supremacist users as a code for "TND," or "total n***** death."
A post from an “X” account from the day of the attack includes a photo of a person giving the “okay” hand gesture, which is used in some extremist circles as a way to troll viewers.
The hand gesture commonly used to connote “OK” was co-opted in 2017 by members of the far-right and white supremacists who recast the symbol to mean “white power” — indicated by the W and P formed by the hand. The use of the hand gesture has since become a common occurrence at far-right rallies and among some Trump supporters who make it to taunt opponents.
The Three Percenters, a right-wing anti-government militia group, also utilizes a similar symbol — outstretched middle, ring and pinkie fingers to represent the Roman numeral for three — that can at a glance be mistaken for the “OK” gesture, though Three Percenters is not explicitly white supremacist.
Here are a few examples of school shootings with connections to nazi and anti-government groups and beliefs. This is not an exhaustive list but rather a few examples that highlight the extent these attacks over the last 60 years.
Lansing Everett High School (1978)
At dismissal, a 15-year-old sophomore—who regularly wore a nazi pin to school—opened fire in a crowded hallway. Following his arrest, police searched the teen’s bedroom, where they discovered a cache of Nazi literature, Nazi armbands, a Nazi flag, and excerpts from “Mein Kampf.” They found an elaborate drawing of a concentration camp, complete with gas chambers, along with a diary called “My Struggle,” named after Hitler’s book. In one of the entries, he wrote: “I almost abandoned Hitler last night ─ out of being pushed too far by my colleagues. I almost went to school without my Nazi pin in my jacket. But luckily again I had a burst of courage and never again will I think about abandoning Mein Fuhrer and Nazism.”
Cokeville Elementary School (1986)
Cokeville, WY Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on May 16, 1986 when David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47, took 154 hostages – 136 children and 18 adults. The Youngs had ties to white supremacist groups, including the Posse Comitatus and the Aryan Nations. They demanded two million dollars per hostage and an audience with President Ronald Reagan. During a standoff with police, seventy students were severely burned when their homemade bombs detonated inside the school.
Columbine High School (1999)
On April 20, 1999—coincidentally or intentionally Hitler’s birthday (also the day after the Oklahoma City Bombing anniversary)—Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out a mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. While there is debate over how deeply the shooters were influenced by nazi or racist ideologies, some evidence shows Eric Harris made references to Hitler in his personal writings. The selection of the date, alongside the content of certain journals, led many to believe they held a fascination with Hitler’s legacy.
Red Lake Senior High School (2005)
In March 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise opened fire at Red Lake Senior High School on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. Weise, who was of Ojibwe descent, had previously posted on a neo-Nazi internet forum expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler and voicing racist sentiments despite his own Indigenous background. This contradictory identification with white supremacist ideas and nazi symbolism shows the power of extremist rhetoric over vulnerable teens.
Aztec High School (2017)
William Atchison, a 21-year-old with documented racist and anti-Semitic online activity, carried out a shooting at Aztec High School in New Mexico in December 2017. He had posted hateful messages on social media platforms, praising mass murderers and espousing white supremacist viewpoints. Disguising himself as a student, Atchison entered the school, killed two students, and then took his own life, leaving behind digital evidence of his extremist beliefs and intentions.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (2018)
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. Testimony during his trial showed handwritten notes with swastikas, Nazi references, and hateful language.
Santa Fe High School (2018)
A 17-year-old student killed 10 and wounded 13 others inside his high school. Before the shooting, the teenage student assailant uploaded a picture of a black trench coat adorned with several pinned symbols. In captions, he explained the significance of each: the Communist Party’s hammer and sickle representing rebellion, Nazi Germany’s Iron Cross representing bravery, the Japanese rising sun for the tactics of kamikaze pilots, the Knights Templar’s Baphomet for evil, and the Cthulhu from science fiction for power.
Oxford High School (2021)
In the months before the Oxford High School shooting in Michigan, the 15-year-old texted his mother about seeing demons and ghosts in the family home, filmed himself torturing animals, and obsessed over firearms and Nazi propaganda. He bought a Nazi coin online and sketched Nazi symbols in his notebooks.
Mount Horeb Middle/High School (2024)
In his online posts, he wrote about his insecurities with school, friends, girls, sex, and explored questions about death and god. His biological father is Latino but he was raised by white parents in the predominantly white community of Mount Horeb. In school he got good grades and wasn’t bullied, but felt like he didn’t fit in. He did become caught-up in the same culture wars that dominate far-right rhetoric as he wrote online about his anger over Black people, Jews, the LGBT community, feminism, and diversity.
Bad outlook with emboldened far-right
With the US President pardoning the white nationalists, militia members, and neo-nazis who attacked the United State Capitol, people who affiliate with these groups are likely to be emboldened to commit violence.
Regardless of his intent, Elon Musk’s gesture has been taken as a sign that one of the most powerful people in the world condones or supports the neo-nazi movement. The lack of condemnation by the new president further bolsters these beliefs.
One of the few commonalities between teenage school shooters in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s is idolizing nazis, hitler, and white nationalism. As social media platforms become even more unmoderated and unregulated with algorithms elevating hate-based and far-right content, this will further normalize these violent beliefs that have radicalized teenage school shooters for decades.
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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.