Justin Olsen Gun Seizure

Submission 10,344

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Overview

Justin Olsen Gun Seizure refers to a raid of the home of Justin Olsen, an 18-year-old Ohio-resident, who had been accused of making threats of violence on various online forums such as iFunny and Discord. Authorities seized thousands of rounds of ammunition and more than two dozen guns from Olsen's residence.

Background

On August 7th, 2019, following an investigation by the FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska that began in February 2019, authorities raided the home of Justin Olsen, who lived with his father in Boardman, Ohio.^[1] Authorities allege that Olsen had made numerous threats of violence towards various establishments, including Planned Parenthood, a gay bar, as well as federal agents on various web forums. The FBI traced the messages to Olsen's father's home, where they found more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 25 guns, which included AR-15-style assault rifles and shotguns. The raid took place just days after the mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.

Developments

Charges

On August 12th, 2019, authorities charged Olsen with "threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer," according to the New York Times.^[2] The charges stem from posts that Olsen made on Discord, in which he discussed the 1993 FBI siege in Waco, Texas at the compound of the religious cult the Branchdividans. In the chat, Olsen, under the name ArmyofChrist, said, "shoot every federal agent on sight."

According to the Daily Beast,^[4] this would not be the first time that extremists cited the Waco siege as a justification for violence. They wrote:

Extremists, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, have cited Waco as justification for their own violent acts. Olsen allegedly referenced McVeigh as committing “a viable method of political change” when he killed 168 people in a federal building with a truck bomb in 1995. Olsen also allegedly called on followers to “stock up” on illegal firearms.

Olsen's Online Activity

The FBI had been tracing Olsen's online activity since February 2019, following him on the website iFunny and private chat application Discord. His iFunny account had more than 5,000 subscribers. In these chats, Olsen used the name ArmyofChrist, discussing purchasing guns, shooting federal agents, as well as memes that denounce "feminists, progressives, the LGBTQ community, and religious and ethnic minorities, and repeatedly called for the establishment of a Christian ethnostate," according to BuzzFeed. ^[3]

Olsen told authorities that the posts were a "joke" and "a hyperbolic conclusion based on the results of the Waco siege."

iFunny Statement

In a statement to BuzzFeed, iFunny defended the platform, referencing their user guidelines, which Olsen violated by inviting subscribers to Discord servers. They said:

iFunny is the most influential mobile app among young adults in the US. We have over 10 million unique US users in app per month. It's approximately equal to 25% of the young adults population of the US (from 43 million young adults as per government stats). We assume that percent of the potential criminals among them has 100% correlation with the percent of the potential criminals among the whole society.

Media Coverage

Numerous media outlets covered the arrest, including The New York Times,^[2] Buzzfeed,^[3] The Daily Beast,^[4] The Washington Post,^[5] NBC,^[6] ABC^[7] and more.