Holocaust museum shooter reportedly white supremacist James von Brunn

This afternoon, a gunman apparently shot at least one person at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. MSNBC is reporting that the suspected shooter, who also sustained gunshot wounds, is James Von Brunn, a white supremacist born in 1920. Brunn has been approvingly cited on Stormfront, a national white supremacist website. He is apparently the author of a tract called, "Kill the Best Gentiles," which his website describes as "a new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool." Brunn, a WWII veteran, also wrote a screed on President Obama's citizenship that was re-posted to popular right-wing message board Free Republic:

A Department of Homeland Security report leaked earlier this year - and subsequently retracted - warned of right-wing extremists "that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups)."

UpdateLast year, Brunn wrote an article praising Hitler and calling America "a Third-World racial garbage-dump." The article's title was unambiguous:

Brunn concluded, "Prepare to die, White America -- you deserve it."

James Von Brunn Charged In Holocaust Museum Shooting

WASHINGTON - An 88-year-old white supremacist has been charged with murder for killing the security guard who had opened the door to let him into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, officials said Thursday.

Security Guard Stephen T. Johns was shot to death Wednesday by Holocaust denier James von Brunn, who had left his car in a lane of traffic outside an entrance to the museum before walking in with a concealed rifle, District Police Chief Cathy Lanier said at a news conference.

Von Brunn, who once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve, started shooting immediately, exchanging fire with guards who shot and critically injured him, stopping him from entering the museum and hurting anyone else, Lanier said.

In his car, officers found a notebook with a handwritten note saying, "You want my weapons _ this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews," according to a court affidavit. <snip>

Von Brunn was being treated at a Washington hospital. A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Md., von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, "Kill the Best Gentiles," decried "the browning of America" and claimed to expose a Jewish conspiracy "to destroy the White gene-pool." He also wrote of a lifetime of seething anger.

"It's better to be strong than right," he said in one of his dark screeds online, "unless you like dying. Crowds hate good guys."

Von Brunn was charged with murder and killing in the course of possessing a firearm at a federal facility, both capital offenses under federal law, and authorities said Thursday hate crime charges were also possible.

"We know what Mr. von Brunn did yesterday at the Holocaust museum. Now it's our responsibility to determine why he did it," said Joseph Persichini, assistant director of the Washington FBI field office. "We have to ask ourselves did all these years of public display of hatred impact his actions." <snip>

Public records show that in 2004 and 2005 he lived briefly in Hayden, Idaho, which for years was home to the Aryan Nations, a racist group run by neo-Nazi Richard Butler.

Civil rights groups were familiar with his virulent history.

"We've been tracking this guy for decades," said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which tracks hate crimes. "He thinks the Jews control the Federal Reserve, the banking system, that basically all Jews are evil," she said. "He's an extreme anti-Semite."

His Internet writings say the Holocaust was a hoax. "At Auschwitz the 'Holocaust' myth became Reality, and Germany, cultural gem of the West, became a pariah among world nations," he wrote.

The attack is "further proof that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial have not passed from the world," said Israel's information and Diaspora minister, Yuli Edelstein.