The radical left’s recruitment of violent extremists on college campuses represents another dagger in the “both sides” argument it has been spinning since the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
With the nation already reeling from Kirk’s murder and what appears to be a leftist opening fire at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Texas, fliers recruiting more violent extremists are popping up on college campuses.
The fliers are encouraging students to join the infamous John Brown Club, an extremist group named for an 19th century abolitionist who was involved in the murder of five boys and men he thought were tied to the slavery movement. It was later learned that none had owned slaves.
The fliers, which included a QR code that leads to a sign-up page, were spotted on the Georgetown University campus and read, “Hey, Fascist! Catch,” the same words that were allegedly on shell casings used by Kirk’s alleged murderer, Tyler Robinson.
The flyer also claims the group to be “The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”
The QR code links to a webpage that says, “We’re building a community done with ceremonial resistance and strongly worded letters. If you want to make real change, let us know below.”
The fliers also drew the interest of Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Kirk’s Turning Point USA and executive producer of the Charlie Kirk Show, who posted an image of one of the fliers on his X page.
Originally formed in Kansas in 2002, the John Brown Club has since spun off an assortment of John Brown Gun Club groups that purport to be heavily armed and devoted to promoting racial equality and social justice.
Along with being gun-based, the groups spew what is often violent, anti-police rhetoric, including a 2022 tweet from a group calling itself the Connecticut John Brown Gun Club: “Never forget, merely the threat of violence, the demonstration of the CAPACITY for violence is enough to keep most fascists and cops in check. We hope to never need to act on that capacity, and we train so we won’t miss if we have to.”
Another tweeting under the name of DMV John Brown Gun Club reacted to an incident in 2022 when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to leave through the back door of a restaurant to avoid protesters.
“The supreme court justices should not know a moment of comfort,” the tweet said.
A tweet apparently posted by the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club said, “Police are a danger to the community. Every single one is a mass shooter in waiting.” It also tweeted, “Without cops, who would ignore heinous crimes and harass minorities?”
A tweet apparently posted by the Cedar Breaks John Brown Club said, “F*#k the pigs and give people money is the only acceptable political position.”
Brown, who in 1848 following an abolition rally in Cleveland vowed to incite a insurrection, gained national notoriety in 1856 in what became known as Bleeding Kansas, a series of events triggered by Brown that ended with 29 dead.
Reacting to pro-slavery mobs causing significant damage in Lawrence, Kansas and beating an abolitionist senator on the Senate floor, Brown, four of his sons and three friends dragged the five boys and men from
their homes along the Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas and murdered them using guns and swords.
As news of the killings spread, Kansas erupted into fighting that lasted several months and claimed more than two dozen lives.
Several years later, Brown’s most infamous incident took place in what is now Harpers Ferry, West Virginia when he and an armed band of abolitionists attacked a military arsenal in what historians describe as an elaborate plan to create a stronghold for freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia.
The effort failed and he was later hanged for treason in South Carolina.
That college students and others are being recruited to join a movement associated with Brown’s name is concerning, John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at The Federalist, wrote on the organization’s website.
“In the context of the ongoing wave of left-wing political terrorism in America, this flier for the John Brown Club should be understood as a direct call to violence,” he wrote.
“A tide of left-wing terrorism is rising in America, thanks largely to incessant incitement by Democrat politicians and aggressive propaganda from the corporate press. The foot soldiers of the left are drawing on — and actually resurrecting — the bloody legacy of John Brown, the abolitionist who unleashed a reign of terror in the years preceding the Civil War.
“It’s time to take the left’s repeated invocations of Brown seriously, because they obviously do.”
The movement also pokes holes in the arguments presented in left-leaning media and by elected Democrats who have attempted to equivocate Kirk’s murder, the shooting at the ICE facility and other violent actions by leftist supporters to actions by those on the right.
“In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the left has been aggressively seeking to control the narrative,” said Matt Margolis, a conservative commentator and columnist who has appeared on Newsmax.
“Countless times, elected Democrats and members of the media have framed political violence as a ‘both sides’ problem.”
Van Charles has been a journalist for more than 30 years. He has won writing awards from press associations in New York, New Mexico, North Carolina and Kentucky.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
