Throwing Bombs Is Bad and Illegal
Stating the obvious.
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Ariane de Gennaro is a communications intern at the Renew Democracy Initiative and an incoming JD candidate at Harvard Law School. She previously wrote for the Yale Daily News and worked in the office of Senator Mazie Hirono.
Spring arrived early in New York City, and with it, scandal.
Last weekend, an anti-Muslim protest formed outside the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion. A larger group of counterprotestors joined. The situation could have remained an exercise in free speech, however upsetting. Instead, it culminated in the throwing of a bomb.
You would be forgiven for assuming from this brief description that the bomb was thrown by a participant in the anti-Muslim protest—especially if you read Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s initial response to the incident.
“Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism,” Mamdani wrote on X. “What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
But the bomb-lobbing offenders were not part of the anti-Muslim crew. In fact, the two accused individuals cited ISIS as their inspiration, claiming that they hoped to cause more damage than the Boston Marathon bombers.
A CNN tweet, since taken down, was even more vague than Mamdani’s. “Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City last Saturday morning for what could have been a normal day,” it begins. “Their lives would be drastically changed as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.”
CNN’s post reads as if two young men were taken off guard and suddenly stripped of their agency as the encounter with the white nationalist protestors practically ripped the bomb from their hands.
What are you meant to do in the face of such hate?
For starters, not throw a bomb!
Attempting this act of violence makes the teenagers in question criminals. Their bomb did not go off. If it had, they might also have been murderers. They created a device with the intention to harm. They endangered not only the protesters but also the staff of the mayor’s residence, as well as any passersby.
It has become popular in certain quarters to say that hateful words constitute violence on their own. That worldview was clearly at work in statements that centered the reprehensible yet legal protests over an act of actual violence. We need to return to the common-sense view: tossing a bomb is absolutely more atrocious than a nasty yet lawful demonstration. Mamdani, who is positioned as a standard bearer of a major political party, should be able to say so explicitly. CNN, an established media outlet, should too. What does it say about the culture in our government offices and newsrooms that they fumbled on an issue that should be clear?
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Of course, Jake Lang was a January 6 insurrectionist, and his protest was despicable. It is fair, even necessary, to call out Trump’s pardon of him and other insurrectionists and ask what a man who stormed one government building was doing outside of another. Still, the fact remains that Lang’s protest broke no laws.
However abhorrent the ideology behind the protest, it did not justify a violent response. More to the point, agitators like Lang are often courting violent confrontation. Throwing a bomb is not only wrong, it indulges their sick game. Failing to call out the attempted attack hands them a rhetorical win.
Next, if we are going to talk about Lang’s ideology, then we should also discuss that of the bomb throwers. As many have pointed out, the radical Islamism behind the bomb can be as harmful as the white supremacy that the mayor was quick to criticize.
One user on X replied to Mamdani’s initial tweet: “You said Jake Lang was driven by white supremacy, will you name the ideology that caused them to throw an IED?” The commenter rightly points to the hypocrisy in calling out one dangerous ideology while omitting another.
In fairness to Mamdani, his later responses got it right. At a press conference on Monday, he expressed that, while he found Lang’s protest appalling, he “will not waver [his] my belief that it should be allowed to happen.”
“Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred,” he said. “It does not belong only to those we agree with. It belongs to everyone. I will defend that right every day that I am mayor, even when those protesting say things that I abhor.”
Mamdani also clearly condemned the men in question and acknowledged the ideology they espoused. In a later post on X, he wrote: “Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi have been charged with committing a heinous act of terrorism and proclaiming their allegiance to ISIS. They should be held fully accountable for their actions. We will not tolerate terrorism or violence in our city.”
This new set of statements correctly affirms that ideas—even despicable ones—cannnot be prosecuted. It is only when belief crosses into criminal behavior that the law intervenes. Here, Mamdani strikes the right chord. It should not have taken him over a day to do so. As a society, we lose moral clarity when we fail to state the obvious upfront: throwing bombs is bad.
We can retain complexity while confronting these plain truths. Condemning the bomb throwers is not standing with white supremacy or against Islam. In the same way, condemning white supremacists is not an endorsement of terrorism. This is not a zero-sum game.
In America, the most horrible ideas may be expressed, so long as they are expressed within the bounds of the law. Horrible acts are not excused, even if they target bad people. You cannot decide that someone is bad and take it upon yourself to punish them with violence (and endanger anyone caught in the crossfire). We have courts to determine crime and punishment because democracy is structured around rules, not our individual whims.
There are many ideas well-worth condemning. We can—and should—debate the motives behind acts of violence and consider the context of any given situation. Yet some lines must remain clear. And in a free society, weapons are not an appropriate response to words.
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Mamdani, like Trump, will say the most self preserving thing until public pressure is applied. The first impression is what sticks. Mamdani knows this.
New York would be wise to snap out of the honeymoon phase and start judging Mamdani for how every single crisis so far has been met with self preservation tactics that have come at the expense of public safety.
All of his initial responses are propagandized rewriting of the real story.
The cops instigated a “snowball fight.” A bomb was almost detonated during a violent anti-Muslim protest.
All of this sends an unequivocal signal to Islamic extremists. “You are presumed innocent and the other side is presumed guilty. Go crazy”
It’s sad watching New York make every mistake that Minnesota carefully maneuvered just 2 months ago.
I agree with nearly everything you said, but I think it likely that Mamdani simply waited to confirm who or what motivated the thrown IED before speaking out - better to be silent until the facts are known than to inadvertently spread misinformation. 🙂