A convicted ISIS supporter opened fire on the campus of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring two others before being killed himself. Within hours, the local prosecutor used the attack to lecture the country about gun control, directing blame not at the terrorist but at lawmakers who support the Second Amendment.
Commonwealth's Attorney Ramin Fatehi walked up to the podium at a post-shooting press conference unprovoked and delivered a prepared indictment of American gun culture. He did this while a confirmed act of Islamic terrorism was still being processed by federal investigators.
The backlash was immediate and savage.
Shortly before 10:49 a.m., ODU issued an emergency alert about an active shooter on campus. Multiple federal sources confirmed to Fox News that the suspected shooter was Mohamed Jalloh, a former National Guardsman and naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone.
Jalloh was previously sentenced in 2017 for attempting to provide material support to ISIS. He appears to have been released by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in late 2024, during the Biden administration.
Reporting from the New York Post indicated that Jalloh was targeting ROTC members on campus and that one person stopped the attack by stabbing and killing the suspect. ODU Police Chief Garrett Shelton told reporters that one victim died from the shooting, along with the gunman, while two others were injured.
At a Thursday evening news conference, Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans confirmed what the circumstances already screamed:
"We have confirmed reports that prior to him conducting this act of terrorism, he shouted all our stated Allahu Akbar."
FBI Director Kash Patel indicated Thursday that federal authorities were investigating the matter as an act of terrorism.
So: a man with a documented history of supporting ISIS, who was convicted of trying to provide material support to a terrorist organization, walked out of federal prison and attacked American military cadets on a college campus while shouting "Allahu Akbar." The facts are not ambiguous.
None of that stopped Ramin Fatehi from turning a terrorism press conference into a stump speech for gun control. The Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney, who has served since 2022, used the podium to deliver a monologue that managed to blame everyone except the man who pulled the trigger.
"We live in a country where people care more about guns than they care about 6-year-old children. They care more about guns than they care about synagogue worshipers. And they care more about guns than they do about college students."
He then pointed the finger directly at elected officials and the judiciary:
"If you are looking for somebody to blame, don't look at anybody up here, look at our lawmakers who don't have the courage to implement sensible gun control measures, look to a Supreme Court that enables them, and do something about it."
When pressed by Fox News Digital, Fatehi doubled down:
"I absolutely stand by what I said. It is the truth, no matter how much the gun lobby wants to deny it."
He added that "no matter the ideology of an attacker, that attacker is more dangerous with a gun than without one." Which is technically true and spectacularly irrelevant. A convicted ISIS supporter walked free from federal custody and targeted American soldiers. The question is not how he did it. The question is why he was on the street at all.
Fatehi's instinct to redirect a terrorism investigation into a gun control sermon becomes less surprising when you follow the money. A Fox News Digital review found that two Soros-funded PACs donated over $650,000 combined to his campaign coffers between 2021 and 2025.
According to the Capital Research Center:
Fatehi joins a roster of better-known liberal prosecutors supported by Soros-backed groups, including recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, former Chicago District Attorney Kim Foxx, and former Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. The pattern is familiar: prosecutors who treat the justice system as a vehicle for progressive activism rather than public safety.
Over $650,000 in Soros money, and Fatehi's first instinct after a terrorist attack is to blame the Bill of Rights.
Conservative commentators did not mince words. Cam Edwards, editor of BearingArms, posted on X:
"I really try not to cuss here, but Fatehi can f--- right off with this statement."
RedState writer Bonchie captured the absurdity of Fatehi's framing with a line that needed no embellishment: "You see, ISIS terrorists wouldn't be terrorists if it weren't for Republican gun culture or something."
Bonchie also raised a darker concern about where Fatehi's instincts might lead, suggesting there was "like a 90% chance he's going to charge the hero who stabbed the Islamist to death to stop the attack." Hyperbole, perhaps. But with Soros-backed prosecutors, the track record earns the suspicion.
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, offered the sharpest rebuke:
"I generally stop short of telling bad faith morons to go to hell because eternal damnation isn't a trifling matter, but this level of intentional and malicious imbecility is testing my resolve."
A man convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS in 2017 was released from federal prison in late 2024. Months later, he targeted American ROTC cadets on a college campus while invoking the name of God in Arabic. One person is dead. Two are injured. A civilian had to stop the attack with a knife.
And the local prosecutor's takeaway is that we need fewer guns and more "political will" against the "cult of gun absolutism."
This is the logic of a class of prosecutors who have been selected, funded, and trained to see every act of violence as a systemic American failure rather than an individual one. The ideology of the attacker becomes incidental. The criminal history becomes irrelevant. The fact that a known ISIS sympathizer was walking free on American soil is not even worth mentioning at the press conference. Instead, the villain is the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court that upholds it.
Fatehi told the public not to blame "anybody up here" on the stage. He's right about one thing: no one on that stage released Mohamed Jalloh from prison. But no one on that stage seems interested in asking who did, or why.
A terrorist attacked American soldiers on American soil. The people of Norfolk deserve a prosecutor who recognizes the enemy. Instead, they got a lecture about gun control, bought and paid for.