We should not make any assumptions here.
I remember that about 20+ years ago a famous biologist was killed, and there were all kinds of speculations about terrorists, the government, and so on. A few years later, Snapped episode was released.
Questions alone are not productive. Asking questions and being willing to deal with delayed, missing, incomplete, unexpected and unwelcome answers is where it's at.
"The information about a possible connection between the two incidents was developed in the last 24 hours as detectives working on both cases compared notes, the sources said."
I like to think HN is better than the level of conspiracy theory adoption and 4chan-like haha dude died let me make jokes about it posts in those pages.
Although this was probably a random act of violence, it makes me wonder.
As a nuclear scientist, could he have been involved in any sensitive research?
Maybe he "knew too much" and was deemed a NatSec/InfoSec threat by certain clandestine groups? It wouldn't be the first time...
But on the actual topic, it could be a case of home invasion etc. No need to jump to conclusions of further malicious intent (yet).
Obviously not. It matters what surrounding facts and circumstances are reported, how extraordinary they are, how they are known, how they were cross-checked, who is doing the reporting, what is their track record around research and impartiality, etc etc.
Different people will come to different conclusions about who they trust for what reasons. Some people may conclude they do not trust "the news" in this particular case or in general. Some may have ideas about what they think really happened and will not be convinced otherwise.
Very, very few people, especially outside "the news", will do actual, open-minded research. A lot more will comment and speculate pointlessly.
This is America. A burglar, jealous relative or raging lunatic is most likely.
If we assume it is state action, which again, is like a teen assuming every zit is a malignant cancer, then putting Israel at the top of the list is pretty much only evidence of being in a filter bubble.
(EDIT: Never mind, looked at comment history, troll account.)
Here and there it is also claimed that he was jewish, which I haven't seen any credible sources corroborate.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-strange-death-of-nuno-lo...
Israeli security is going to suspect everything is done by Iran because that is their threat model (and geopolitical incentive). If you asked enough security people in Seoul, they'd suspect North Korea. (Emphasis on suspicion. They wouldn't say it's likely Pyongyang if they're honest and competent.)
That's the nature of training focus on an enemy: you're constantly looking for and invalidating connections. Emphasis on active invalidation, which is the opposite of the scientific method, which starts with null hypotheses.
But scouting requires empirical feedback. If you have no way to invalidate your hypotheses, you end up in mind junk territory. Suspicions turn into assumptions turn into ground truths which fuel further suspicions. With each turn, they become increasingly baseless because that's what complex, unmoored processes do.
Reacting to a random shooting by looking to what Israel is saying about it is a signal that one has gone mind junk. (Not irretrievably. We all catch ourselves in idiot territory from time to time. I've criticized OP, so I'll put out an example: I initially suspected Iran was behind the Bondi Beach shootings because I thought high-powered rifles were illegal in Australia, that gangs wouldn't shoot up a synagogue, and I recalled Canberra expelling Iran's diplomatic mission because of something to do with bombing synagogues. Evidence showed that hypothesis to be flatly false. That not only means I need to reverse my hypothesis, but also be suspicious of future times I jump to conclusions around state-sponsored terrorism versus self-indoctrinated domestic terrrorism or more-banal criminality.)
Why do you come to this conclusion, instead of, say, that they're looking for something to hand to the US that they can use for diplomatic and ideological cover?
Does your hypothesis (to be clear, I'm not sure what it is) change given the new suspect [1]? (If not, is there any information which would change it?)
If I had to draw an inappropriately-broad delineation on types of thought, one might be between faith and science. Something held on faith cannot be disproven. This includes good things, like values. It includes bad things, like a single cause for all evil in the world. I find the category error between these particularly interesting, i.e. when someone believes they rationally, empirically and objectively hold an article of faith. (The inverse is the proving of a strongly, perhaps compulsively, held hypothesis.)
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/18/man-suspected-in-sh...
Also FWIW in MA firearms aren't licensed, rather their owners are. And ownership isn't registered, rather many types of transfers are supposed to be recorded.
Granted, even if you find such matches, you still have to prove motive and opportunity.
You'd also be excluding everybody who illegally has a firearm or knife or whatever the murder weapon is.
I think there’s also the issue that you’re more likely to be murdered by someone you know than a random person. At the very least, matching bullet marks from shots fired from his associates guns to any casings found at the scene is just due diligence.
The most rapidly increasing (although still small in absolute numbers) class of gun associated with crime today are the 3D-printed variations:
Thousands of guns are found at crime scenes. What do they tell us?
* https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5641154/crime-guns-data...
So, yes, if this a crime of passion, a dispute between aquaintainces that escalated badly then there's a good chance the gun used has a history of ownership and registration.
If this is a crime related to home invasion gone badly then it's more likely to be a gun that fell off the radar some time past.