A California man has pleaded responsible to threatening Merriam-Webster after changing into enraged that the dictionary firm included gender identification in its definitions of “lady” and “woman.”
Jeremy David Hanson despatched messages in October saying the corporate’s headquarters “ought to be shot up and bombed,” and the editors concerned in crafting definitions ought to be “hunted down and shot.”
“I’m sick and bored with these cultural Marxists denying science and destroying the English Language. Merriam-Webster headquarters ought to be shot up and bombed. Boys aren’t women,” he wrote in one among a sequence of missives final yr, in response to FBI brokers who investigated the case.
Hanson pleaded responsible to 2 counts of threatening interstate communications, one for his messages to Merriam-Webster and the opposite for comparable messages to the College of North Texas.
In that case, Hanson despatched a message to the college president in March saying he would “begin executing tyrannical leftist college students and college who oppress conservatives.”
“The one good Democrat is a lifeless Democrat,” he wrote.
Federal prosecutors stated Hanson was motivated by hate for members of the LGBTQ neighborhood.
“Each member of our neighborhood has a proper to dwell and exist authentically as themselves with out concern,” stated Rachael S. Rollins, U.S. legal professional for Massachusetts, the place Hanson entered his plea final week.
The FBI stated Hanson had a prolonged historical past of threats, and so they had interviewed him way back to 2015 over messages he’d despatched on the time.
In 2020 he made threats in opposition to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Land O’ Lakes company and a New York rabbi, the FBI stated.
Brokers additionally linked him to threats final yr in opposition to native officers in Wisconsin, a online game firm, DC Comics, a professor at Loyola Marymount College, Amnesty Worldwide USA, USA Right now and Hasbro.
In that occasion he was upset over the toy firm’s determination to drop “Mr.” from the long-lasting “Mr. Potato Head” model title, the FBI stated.
Brokers who interviewed him after that incident stated he admitted he had issue controlling his “rage.” He stated that whereas he despatched threats, he didn’t intend to hold them out — although he additionally acknowledged the threats had been mistaken.
“He understood there was a distinction between expressing himself and threatening somebody, he agreed he must discover a completely different outlet for his emotions when he received indignant about one thing he noticed within the information and he expressed regret that regulation enforcement needed to become involved,” FBI Particular Agent Casey Hunter Anderson wrote in an affidavit earlier this yr supporting the cost in opposition to him over the Merriam-Webster threats.
He posted threats and different derogatory feedback on Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “lady,” “woman,” “boy,” “feminine” and “trans lady,” the FBI stated.
The dictionary firm took his threats significantly sufficient to shut places of work in Massachusetts and New York for 5 days.
Every cost Hanson pleaded responsible to carries a sentence of as much as 5 years in jail. He’s scheduled for sentencing in January.
