‘QAnon Shaman’ Excited to Buy ‘Some Motha Fu*kin Guns’ After Trump Pardon

Jake Chansley, who complained that prison didn't serve organic food, was one of the 1,500 Capitol rioters pardoned by Trump on Monday night, meaning he can now legally buy firearms.

By Lauren Tousignant  |  January 21, 2025 | 1:34pm
Photo: Getty Images NewsPolitics
‘QAnon Shaman’ Excited to Buy ‘Some Motha Fu*kin Guns’ After Trump Pardon

In a sign of surely great and healing times to come, one of the January 6 Capitol rioters tweeted that he was “gonna buy some motha f*kin guns!!!” now that he’s been pardoned by Trump.

Jake Chansley, a far-right conspiracy theorist nicknamed the “QAnon Shaman,” put on red, white, and blue face paint, took off his shirt, wore a fur headdress with bison horns, and carried a six-foot spear to storm the Capitol, making him one of the most recognizable (and ridiculous) faces of January 6. During his trial, he was described by prosecutors as “the most prominent symbol of a violent insurrection” and in a detention memo, they wrote that Chansley thinks he’s “an alien.”

In November 2021, Chansley pleaded guilty to charges of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. But he was released early from federal prison in March 2023, transferred to a halfway house, and was released from the halfway house in May 2023. After his release, he told The Atlantic that he stormed the Capitol because it was his “shamanic duty.” Chansley was also the rioter who complained that there wasn’t any organic food in prison.

“I just got the news from my lawyer…I got a pardon baby! Thank you President Trump!!!” Chansley wrote on Twitter at 9 p.m. Monday night, except he tweeted it in all caps. “Now I am gonna buy some motha fu*kin guns!!!” I’ll note that the asterisk is his, not ours–we’re fine with spelling out “fuckin.”

“J6ers are getting released & justice has come…everything done in the dark will come to light,” he added.

According to federal law, if you’re convicted of a felony, you’re banned from buying or possessing guns. However, Trump’s pardon removes that conviction, allowing Chansley to legally buy as many guns as he wants.

1,583 defendants were charged in connection to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. On Monday night, Trump issued roughly 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional pardons,” that will end “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.” Many of the rioters attacked police officers, with DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone previously describing to CNN that, after he’d been tasered, he heard rioters screaming, “Kill him with his own gun.” On Monday night, Fanone told Anderson Cooper, “I have been betrayed by my country.” One police officer and four rioters were killed during the attack, and four officers died by suicide in the months that followed.

Trump further called the rioters “patriots” and “hostages” and claimed they were unfairly treated by the Justice Department, just like he was. Insert eye roll.

Before Chansley was sentenced in November 2021, he told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that his “behavior is indefensible.” He turned himself in to the FBI following the insurrection and said he’d been “groomed” by MAGA propaganda.

So much for that, I guess.

 
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