On 15 March 2019, consecutive terrorist mass shootings took place at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, carried out by Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant. In total, 51 people were killed while another 89 were injured (40 by direct gunfire). Tarrant, who was found to have been motivated by Islamophobia, white supremacy, and belief in the white genocide conspiracy theory, was later sentenced to 52 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 480 years.
The attack was one of the deadliest of its kind ever carried out by a lone perpetrator. It has had a lasting impact and legacy across Oceania and the wider world, mostly attributed to the perpetrator's thorough planning of the event (leading to a high death toll), his carefully-curated ideological manifesto, and the livestreamed nature of the initial shooting, which made it easy for graphic footage of the rampage to be shared and glorified online. As such, many murderous incidents and plots have been inspired by the attack, either directly or indirectly.
In each of the five years year following the shootings, there was at least one copycat attack directly inspired by the events of Christchurch. Perpetrators often replicate the shooting's defining characteristics, such as pre-planned manifestos motivated by a far-right accelerationist ideology, attempts to livestream their rampage, and writings on firearms, similar to how Tarrant wrote the names of numerous far-right movements and killers on the weapons he used in the attacks. Terrorgram, which is considered an online terrorist group in a handful of countries (including New Zealand, where the Christchurch shootings occurred), formed in the late 2010s and early 2020s as an indirect consequence of the shooting. The group promotes Tarrant and his copycats as saints, urging other accelerationists to mimic Tarrant's crime.
The attack was also used by both far-right terrorists and the Islamic State to call for attacks on the other side. The attack featured in Islamic State propaganda with Abu Hassan al-Muhajir calling for attacks on the "nations of the Cross and the apostate" in retaliation for the attack.
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Copycat incidents