I grew up in an era when swatting wasn’t a thing. Politics existed and was a topic of discussion among a great many people, but it wasn’t as divisive as it is now. We didn’t have social media that put it in everyone’s face each and every day, though, so it was easy to ignore the fact that this co-worker was a raging liberal or a fire-breathing conservative. As long as they didn’t try to force it into every discussion, all was well.

Today, politics is a blood sport. People want to not just win, but destroy their opponents, and swatting is a favorite tactic of some people. 

In fact, it’s bad enough that the FBI is issuing a warning.

I recently reached out to the local sheriff’s office and did something I hadn’t previously expected would ever be on my radar: I asked that, if they ever receive a call regarding my residence that requires an emergency response, they keep in mind the high likelihood that it’s a hoax. I was assured that the word would be passed to the local commander and deputies. There was no surprise on their part at what would have been a weird request just a few years ago, for good reason. The director of the FBI and other government officials have been sounding the alarm about an uptick in swatting attacks, many of them targeted at people whose political opinions rub somebody the wrong way.

Swatting on the Rise

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is aware of multiple recent ‘swatting’ incidents,” according to an April 29 alert. “Swatting is the malicious tactic of making hoax calls or reports to emergency services, typically feigning an immediate threat to life. Swatting is intended to draw a large response from SWAT teams or other law enforcement resources to an unsuspecting victim’s location, causing chaos and the potential for injury or violence.”

The alert doesn’t go into political targeting. But on March 14, FBI Director Kash Patel posted, “I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable.”

A few days later, Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, similarly posted, “The recent surge in ‘swatting’ attacks against conservatives is a dangerous form of political violence. I’ve been in touch with law enforcement to ensure they have access to the trace back resources that locate a call’s originating point.”

Swatting has been a problem for years, with the term perhaps first used by the FBI in 2008. Even then, swatters were using technology to disguise their voices and make it look like calls originated at victims’ homes. In 2018, with swatting attacks occurring frequently enough to be a serious problem, the Seattle Police Department launched a voluntary registry to which people could add their names and addresses if they thought they might be targets. Other communities, including Wichita, Kansas, implemented similar systems.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about putting myself on any kind of voluntary registry. It’s not that I don’t trust the government, mind you, it’s that I don’t trust the government.

That said, if people think they might become targets of swatting, it might be worth it.

I’m glad to see the feds looking at this, but it’s far from a new tactic. It’s been a thing for far too long, and let’s also be real here, this isn’t a prank by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s something worse:

A Cheap Form of Terrorism

More recently, swatting has become a political weapon through which activists use the emergency reporting system and the police on the other end to threaten and intimidate people they don’t like.

“When men arrive at your home heavily armed, body armor, tiptoeing around the perimeter of your home, that’s a serious situation,” conservative writer Larry Taunton told his local CBS channel in Alabama after his family was swatted one night in March.

Now, let’s think about this as gun owners for a moment.

If I get a knock on the door in the middle of the night, I’m going to the door with a gun in my hand. It goes without saying that if the door gets kicked in, I’m responding similarly.

And that’s the point in a lot of these incidents.

See, if the cops send a SWAT team out to me because they’ve got a report that I’m doing something awful, and they kick in the door to stop me, they’re already primed for violence. If they see me with a gun, there’s every chance they’ll light me up, especially if the lights in my face make it difficult for me to determine that they’re police officers.

That could get me killed, which is the point. That’s what a lot of these twerps doing this are hoping to achieve. They want to kill people, but lack the cajones to try and do it themselves. So, they outsource it to the supposedly brutal police departments that actually aren’t, but are more than willing to be just as violent as they need to be to go home at the end of the day.

If the target ends up dead in a pool of their own blood, that’s not a bonus. That’s the goal.

At worst, though, they scare the party in question and hope they can drive such a person into silence. 

I know that my wife would likely be so freaked out that she’d want me to find another job, at least in the initial aftermath.

The upside is that swatting is illegal, and many swatters have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. This needs to happen more often, but until then, I guess submitting your name to the local cops as someone who might be the target of such a thing is probably wise.