An Arizona gun dealer sold weapons to an undercover FBI agent he believed could help him carry out mass shootings against minorities, hoping the move would "start a race war."

       According to the British newspaper The Guardian, gun dealer Mark Adams Prieto was indicted on the 11th for illegal weapons trading, transferring guns to people who committed hate crimes, and illegally possessing unregistered guns. The indictment stated that the 58-year-old man recruited an FBI undercover agent and an informant at the gun show.

 

Screenshot of the Guardian report

        According to the indictment, Prieto told the two that he had been considering a mass shooting against minorities for some time in order to "start a race war before the presidential election in November." The indictment also stated that Prieto later chose a rap concert in Atlanta in mid-May to launch the attack. The planning of the shooting began in January this year and lasted for several months. It was carried out at gun shows across Arizona, including Phoenix and Tucson. At the gun show, Prieto sold two rifles to FBI agents that would be used to carry out the shooting.

Prieto was arrested on May 14, around the time of the Atlanta concert, with seven guns in his car. Court records show Prieto faces charges of illegally buying and selling firearms, transferring firearms to someone who committed a hate crime and illegally possessing an unregistered firearm.

        According to CNN, the indictment stated that the informant had spoken to Prieto more than a dozen times at different gun shows over the past three years. The informant told the FBI in late 2023 that Prieto had made remarks advocating mass shootings against minorities. The informant and the agent met Prieto at four different gun shows earlier this year. In the first meeting, Prieto allegedly shared his plan to carry out a shooting in Atlanta - specifically at a rap concert because he believed there would be many African Americans there.

Prieto said he focused on Georgia because he believed political conditions there were changing; he blamed the black population there, calling them the N-word, an insult. Among other things, Prieto wanted to ensure the attack was seen as racially motivated, saying he wanted to leave Confederate flags at the scene and saying things like “white people are killing people here” and “the KKK has always been here,” according to the indictment. He “also stressed that it was most important to have a high body count.”

According to a new study by Rutgers Health, nearly 60% of African Americans have experienced some form and degree of gun violence. "In the United States, African Americans suffer disproportionate amounts of violent injuries and gun violence," the researchers wrote in the report. Most African American men and women who suffer gun violence live in low-income urban communities, which puts them at high risk of repeated exposure to gun violence, which in turn leads to persistent physical and mental health challenges.