On September 4, 14-year-old suspect Colt Gray allegedly killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in what has become Georgia’s deadliest school shooting. Continuing a familiar trend, fringe right-wing accounts almost immediately began claiming without evidence that the shooter was trans. Prominent right-wing media influencers followed suit, apparently misinterpreting a CNN report about the suspect’s online activity to baselessly claim that the suspect was “another trans shooter” and “motivated by trans activism."
This has been a common tactic for the right going back as far as there have been mass shootings. They will always claim the shooter is part of some out-group, while simultaneously cheering for mass murder. Then they will bring out “”““crime statistics””“” about how black and Latino people are the real mass shooters, so a white shooter doesn’t count because reasons.