White Supremacist and Anti-Government

(Haaretz/AP) – At the request of the U.S. Park Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is tracing the weapon. Under federal law, convicted felons cannot purchase firearms.

A third law enforcement official said when von Brunn was captured he had a list he had made of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The purpose of the list was not immediately clear.

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.

In his account of his “Federal Reserve caper,” the St. Louis native relates his “character shapers” — among them a schoolyard bully who beat him up, vacation days on the Mississippi River, his service on a PT boat in World War II, and what he said was his first trouble with the law — a year in jail for tussling with a sheriff on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1968, the year he moved to the area from New York City.

Von Brunn applied to have his art shown at the Troika Gallery in Easton, Md., around the time the gallery opened about 12 years ago, two of the owners, Laura Era and Jennifer Wharton, told The Associated Press. They said they turned him down because it was not up to their quality and that made von Brunn angry.

A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Md., von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” that he said no one would publish. He decries “the browning of America” and claims to expose a Jewish conspiracy “to destroy the White gene-pool.”

Von Brunn also wrote, “The ‘Holocaust’ Religion is destroying Western Civilization. The Aryan gene-pool dies, ‘unwept, unhonored and unsung.'”

In his car, officers found a notebook that had handwritten notations stating the following:

“You want my weapons — this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. The 1st Amendment is abrogated —henceforth. See: holywesternempire.org. JVB swore (LT USNR) to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Jews — Bolshevics — Zionists are America’s enemies. See: Talmud — Sanhedrin “Kill the Best Gentiles!”

At the end of the above writings appears the signature: “James W. Von Brunn” according to a court affidavit (pdf).

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.”

Acquaintance John de Nugent