I’m having a hard time believing this story wasn’t just totally made up out of thin air.
If it wasn’t, then I’m blaming the feds entirely.
A Pennsylvania man who hosts an anti-government podcast called the “Alt-Right Armory,” on which he has encouraged listeners to target “not only police, but ‘legislators, lobbyists, and left-wing billionaires’ for assassination with explosives,” is accused of having “amassed an arsenal of fully automatic machine guns,” according to court filings.
Joseph Paul Berger, a 32-year-old Navy veteran who lives with his parents in Bethlehem Township, was arrested Feb. 7 by federal agents who say they found 13 unregistered machine guns and 12 illegal silencers in a locked room in the basement of the family’s home. The cache included, among other models, eight AK-style rifles, two C308 .308 Winchester caliber rifles, two MP5K submachine guns, and one RPK-style machine gun, according to a detention memo filed by prosecutors.
The weapons were test-fired by a lab expert with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who “determined that each gun was modified, after purchase, to make it capable of fully automatic fire,” the filing says.
Berger’s father, Joseph Raymond Berger, 67, was arrested along with his son. The two stored the guns in a locked basement room to which only they had access, according to prosecutors. Their lawyer, Eric E. Winter, did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, and no one answered the phone at the Berger home on Friday.
The younger Berger, who works as a certified armorer and machinist and does not have a criminal record, “regularly espouses anti-government and anti-law enforcement views,” the government argued in a motion against releasing Berger on bail. “For example, in the pilot episode of the Alt-Right Armory the defendant notes that a ‘white man with a rifle can be very dangerous to the system indeed if he has the right motivation.’” He then “extolls the values of police murderer Eric Frein and fantasizes about the cost that could be incurred by a group of people like Frein,” the motion continues, emphasizing that Frein in 2014 murdered a Pennsylvania state trooper in an ambush before going on the run. He was subsequently captured, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Berger and his co-host “halfheartedly claim that the discussion is a ‘prank’ and a ‘playful thought,’ and they are not advocating for violence, but it is clear that the discussions are serious,” the filing states.
On his show, prosecutors pointed out, Berger goes by the moniker “GlockDoctor1488,” which begins with what appears to be a nod to the 14-word slogan used by neo-Nazis that states, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” In white supremacist circles, “88” is code for “Heil Hitler,” as “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2019, Berger reportedly disrupted an event at a public library in Philadelphia where former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe was speaking, screaming, “Fuck you, you anti-white piece of shit! You will not replace us!”
That’s interesting info about the “1488” from the SPLC. I’d always wondered what that meant.
Anyway – I can’t find any podcast from GlockDoctor1488.
This looks like a total hoax.
One thing is certain: you’re going to start hearing a lot more stories like this.
The feds have built up this whole narrative about violent right-wing domestic terrorist white extremists, so with the narrative built, all they need is the extremists.
It’s a kind of Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come” type situation.