Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Stefan Molyneux Made a Video Called the Truth About the Nova Scotia Shooter, Yet Provided No Truth

Stefan Molyneux recently made a video titled "The Truth About the Nova Scotia Shooting" and much like many of his 'truth about' videos he tends to not provide any truth. For those unfamiliar with Stefan Molyneux, he is a white nationalist, and cult leader, who has used his platform on YouTube to spread messages ranging from libertarian, to misogynistic, to racist.

So in this recent video Stefan starts by musing about whether the Nova Scotia shooter was killed while in custody. He complains that Canadian reporters likely won't ask this question(which they won't, because it's ridiculous) but claims that Rebel Media might. After suggesting that the shooter was killed in custody, he says that the reason the RCMP tweeted that the shooter was in custody could have been due to a miscommunication, which is almost certainly the case so he answered his own question.

Next Stefan reminds his viewers that it's important to personalize this tragedy, because people really did die and many families are affected.
2 minutes later he uses the tragedy to make a really out of place anti-abortion comment.


Stefan eventually asks about the firearm used during the killing spree. The police aren't releasing that information which he states, yet he still asks why. A reasonable response is that the investigation is still happening and police generally don't release that information until it's concluded. But Stefan isn't a reasonable person so he claims it's because the liberals are coming for everyone's guns.
In 2001 Gabriel Wortman pleaded guilty to assaulting a 15 year old boy. The victim claims that he was assaulted by an allegedly drunk Wortman, as well as a friend of his. Court documents don't mention a second person. The victim claimed the second person hit him in the back of the head with a crowbar, and he was kicked with work boots. According to Stefan, the use of a crowbar means it was a premeditated attack because nobody just carries a crowbar around with them, neglecting to mention that they were also allegedly wearing work boots which may be the reason why they had it.
Stefan then ponders with no evidence whether Wortman could have bribed members of the justice system.
Shortly after Stefan wonders why an emergency message wasn't sent out on Saturday night. Stefan actually knows this (it's written beside him in the video) police weren't aware that Wortman was an active shooter until the next morning. On Saturday night they were only responding to a firearms complaint. Note: News came out after Stefan released his video that there is no national policy for when the RCMP should use emergency alerts
His next theory really goes way out there. He suggests that the reason police didn't alert the public during the night of the shooting spree is because someone was trying to cover up the supposed justice system failures from the 2001 assault.

Another out there suggestion Stefan makes is that Wortman may be responsible for 100s of unsolved murders in Nova Scotia.

To close out Stefan asks a bunch of questions such as what happened in 2001, and again suggests that people may have been bribed. According to him, Canadian journalists aren't doing their job.

Now it's still too early to claim to fully know what happened during the Nova Scotia shooting spree. It is going to take some time before the public has a detailed explanation for the event and in the end there may be a deeper investigation into police actions. Doing this blog post was tricky because we don't yet have the full story. That said, neither does Stefan Molyneux. When he (and other far-right conspiracy theorists) say they have the truth about a certain subject they take tidbits of information from initial reports, spin it into a larger conspiracy, and pass it off to their audience as if they're just 'asking questions'. We debunked a good portion of his false narrative, but as more information is released the easier it will be to debunk the rest.

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