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Rage 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States

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Rage 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States A Dark & Constant 25 Years of Right-Wing Rage Terrorism in the United States 1 A Dark & Constant 25 Years of Right-Wing Rage Terrorism in the United States Executive Summary nn Right-wing extremists have been one of the nn Overwhelmingly, firearms and explosives were largest and most consistent sources of do- the most common weapons chosen: 55 of mestic terror incidents in the United States the incidents involved use or planned use of for many years, a fact that has not gotten the firearms; 55 involved use of explosives. Overall, attention it deserves. incidents involving firearms were more likely to be deadly. nn The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has compiled a list of 150 right- nn Right-wing terror incidents have involved a wing terrorist acts, attempted acts, and plots wide array of targets, with government, law and conspiracies that took place in the United enforcement, racial and religious targets the States during the past 25 years (1993-2017). most common. These incidents were perpetrated by white nn Right-wing terror incidents occur consistent- supremacists, anti-government extremists, ly because the movements from which they anti-abortion extremists and other types of emanate are mature extremist movements with right-wing extremists. deep-seated roots. The Internet has made it nn The vast majority of right-wing terror incidents easier for extremists to meet each other (and have stemmed from white supremacists and thus engage in plots), as well as to self-radical- anti-government extremists (such as militia ize and become lone wolf offenders. groups and sovereign citizens), with the two nn Right-wing terrorism is a subject under-cov- broad extremist movements being responsible ered by the media, in part perhaps because so for almost the same number of incidents (64 many right-wing terror incidents take place far related to white supremacists, 63 to anti-gov- from major media centers and urban areas. One ernment extremists). consequence of this relative lack of coverage nn Most acts were committed by small number has been an inadequate awareness among of extremists acting on their own rather than policy-makers and the public alike of the threat at the behest of organized extremist groups. that violent right-wing extremists pose. About half of the 150 incidents were actually nn If the United States does not treat right-wing committed by lone wolf offenders. extremism as a real threat, the list of right-wing nn Right-wing extremists have killed 255 people in terror incidents can only grow. these attacks and injured over 600 more. 2 A Dark and Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States 150 right-wing terrorist acts, attempted acts, A Dark and Constant plots and conspiracies from the past 25 years Rage: 25 Years of (1993–2017). These include terrorist incidents from a wide variety of white supremacists, from Right-Wing Terrorism neo-Nazis to Klansmen to racist skinheads, as in the United States well as incidents connected to anti-government extremists such as militia groups, sovereign IN MARCH 2017, a white supremacist from citizens and tax protesters. The list also includes Maryland, James Harris Jackson, traveled to New incidents of anti-abortion terror as well as from York City with the alleged intention of launching a other, smaller right-wing extremist movements. series of violent attacks on black men to discour- age white women from having relationships with ADL’s Center on Extremism definesterrorism as black men. After several days, Jackson chose his a pre-planned act or attempted act of significant first victim, a 66-year old black homeless man, violence by one or more non-state actors in order Timothy Caughman. Jackson later allegedly to further an ideological, social or religious cause, admitted that he had stabbed Caughman with a or to harm perceived opponents of such caus- small sword he had brought with him, describing es. Significant violent acts can include bombings the murder as a “practice run.” or use of other weapons of mass destruction, assassinations and targeted killings, shooting However, after the killing, Jackson’s angry energy sprees, arsons and firebombings, kidnappings dissipated and he turned himself over to the and hostage situations and, in some cases, armed authorities. A week later, New York prosecutors robberies. Domestic terrorism consists of acts or announced that they were charging him with attempted acts of terrorism in which the perpe- second-degree murder as a hate crime and also trators are citizens or permanent residents of the with a state charge of terrorism. country in which the act takes place. Jackson’s aborted killing spree was a shocking The right-wing terrorist incidents in ADL’s list example of right-wing terror in the United include those that best fit the above criteria. They States but it was unfortunately far from an are drawn from the much larger pool of violent isolated example. and criminal acts that American right-wing For over a century and a half, since “burning extremists engage in every year, from hate crimes Kansas” of the 1850s and the Ku Klux Klan of the to deadly encounters with law enforcement. 1860s, right-wing terrorism has been an unwel- Right-wing extremists annually murder a number come feature of the American landscape. Yet of Americans, but only some of those murders today, many people are barely aware that it exists occur in connection with terrorist acts. There are, and most people don’t recognize its frequency after all, hundreds of thousands of adherents of or scope. right-wing extremist movements in the United States and all such movements have some de- Far more attention in recent years has been gree of association with criminal activity. No one given to the threat of homegrown radical Islamic should think, therefore, that the incidents listed terror—a danger that has generated such horrific here represent the breadth of right-wing violence acts as the Orlando and San Bernardino shooting in the U.S. But, as acts of terrorism, they do show sprees. Yet the very real specter of radical Islamic right-wing movements at their most vicious terror in the United States has existed alongside and ambitious. an equally serious threat of terror from right-wing extremist groups and individuals. Both movements have generated shooting The Perpetrators sprees, bombings, and a wide variety of plots and The people who committed or attempted the conspiracies. Both pose threats so significant that terrorist acts listed here came from a variety to ignore either would be to invite tragedy. of right-wing extremist movements. In a few To illustrate the threat of right-wing terrorism in cases, extremists connected to terror incidents the United States, the Anti-Defamation League’s here even adhered to more than one right- Center on Extremism has compiled a list of wing extremist movement; in such cases, the 3 seemingly dominant ideology was selected for Leaving aside dual-movement extremists such as statistical purposes. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the worst white supremacist Timothy McVeigh, for example, was primarily an terrorist was Dylann Roof, a “traditional” white su- anti-government extremist but also had white premacist who embarked upon a deadly shooting supremacist leanings. Richard Poplawski, who spree at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh, South Carolina, in 2015, killing nine. was a white supremacist who also had leanings The anti-government extremists, who are often towards the anti-government movement. collectively termed the “Patriot” movement, consist primarily of adherents of the tax protest Right-wing Terror Incidents movement, the sovereign citizen movement, and in the United States the militia movement (with the latter including Oath Keepers and Three Percenters). Though the 1993–2017 by Movement “Patriot” movement goes back to the mid-1960s, it was in the mid-1990s that it really came into its own in terms of becoming a major domestic terrorist threat, one that equaled the threat posed 42% 11% 2% by white supremacists. Oklahoma City bombers 1% Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were dedi- 1% cated adherents of the “Patriot” movement and 43% their 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building gave notice that anti-government extremists now Number of posed a major threat. Incidents: 150 White Supremacist Note: Partial data It is common for the media and others to Anti-Gov’t Extremist for 2017 assume that anti-government extremists are Anti-Abortion Extremist also mostly white supremacists, but this is not the case. Though there is some overlap between Anti-Muslim Extremist the two spheres, the main anti-government Anti-Immigrant Extremist extremist movements direct their anger at the Other Source: Anti-Defamation League government and there have long been people of color in these movements. Most right-wing extremists in the United States Indeed, the sovereign citizen movement in par- fall into one of two broad umbrella movements or ticular has unfortunately seen particularly strong spheres: white supremacists and anti-government growth within the African-American community extremists. An overwhelming majority of the in recent years. Two of the sovereign-citizen terror incidents listed here (85%) were commit- related incidents on this list, the LaPlace, Lou- ted by adherents of one of these two spheres. isiana, shootings in 2012 and the Columbus, Moreover, the number of acts attributed to each Ohio, bomb-making attempt in 2016, involved sphere is almost identical: 64 terror incidents African-Americans. Two incidents not included on are related to white supremacists, while 63 are this list involved extremists who were primarily related to anti-government extremists. Many peo- black nationalists but who had secondary sov- ple, when picturing right-wing terrorism, tend to ereign citizen affiliations: the 2014 plot by two think of white supremacists, but anti-government men to blow up the Gateway Arch and kill law extremists such as militia groups and sovereign enforcement officials in St.
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