No, Right Wing Terrorists are not more dangerous than Muslim Terrorists

Regarding New America and Facts that Don’t Fit Narratives

It’s common knowledge among well-meaning US liberals that “Right wing extremists kill more people in the US than Jihadists!” This bankrupt factoid can be directly attributed to a spate of breathless media coverage of a “study” published in 2015 by Soros-funded think tank New America. (Note: After the Orlando attacks, the original page was removed.)

New America’s numbers purported to prove that a variety of “right wing” extremists and nutcases had killed more people than US Jihadis post-9/11. When it was published, their “Right wing” count was just slightly higher than their “Jihadi” count. This was before the San Bernardino attacks flipped the needle, followed by an even deadlier attack in Orlando which brought the Jihadi murders to almost double the “Right wing” column.

This has not stopped media outlets from continuing to flog the “fact” that so-called Right Wing extremists were terribly dangerous. It’s also a frequent cry by activists on social media following Jihadist attacks.

Excluding the 9/11 body count- a completely arbitrary & rather obvious decision- is necessary to make even manipulated numbers work. I had a look through them when first published, and they were indeed manipulated, massaged, and tortured to fit. Even with all the manipulation, they barely managed to eke the left column up.

There were serious issues with methodology as well. The report excludes dozens of Americans killed in overseas Islamist terror attacks (well over 100 since 9/11). There is also no mention of thwarted or failed attacks for either type, or of attacks which killed only the suspect, or in which people were merely wounded. A number of religiously-motivated “honor killings” were also ignored, although several hate crimes were counted, as were jail attacks. So-called “lone wolf” attacks were deliberately excluded without explanation from the Jihadi column, but comprise the majority of so-called right wing attacks.

New America posts no real definition of “right wing,” which appears to be a catch-all for white supremacists, anti-government activists, “survivalists,” conspiracists, abortion foes, and a man despondent over a tax bill. Many of the attacks involved robberies or squabbles between individuals who knew one another. In any case, there’s no mention of that elephant in the room: the pool from which to draw right wing crazy should be much, much larger.*

There is of course no column for “Left Wing” attackers (such as African Identity and BLM extremists having murdered about a dozen police officers since 2015.) At least one incident included under the right wing column involved a decidedly leftist group, and another was committed by a man whose suicide note included quotes from Karl Marx, rants about corporate greed, and demands for affordable health care.

The “right wing” column is poorly defined and contains a number of people who have clearly been shoehorned into the description, including:

• Joseph Andrew Stack, who flew his small airplane into an Austin IRS building, left behind a manifesto that is decidedly left wing in tone and content, including quotes from Karl Marx.
• Jerad and Amanda Miller, a pair of spree killers with as many left-wing beliefs as right-wing. Among the concerns shared on their FB accounts were fears of “chemtrails,” Illuminati mind control, and screeds about police brutality.
• A killing over an expensive gun; the murderer apparently claimed he was collecting weapons for a militia that appears not to have existed.
• A bank robbery; again it is implied without evidence funds may have been intended to fund extremist activities.
• The murder of three militia members by other militia members involved in an internal dispute. Even worse, from what little information was released, it seems the “FEAR militia” was an extreme left-wing, Occupy Wall Street inspired anarchist group who wanted to overthrow “corporate America.”**
• Two killed during a home burglary; NA’s rationale to include this incident is that the funds from the robbery may have been intended for anti-immigration activity.

All in all, only about fourteen out of eighteen incidents here could properly be labeled as “attacks,” in which the victims were chosen for ideological purposes. Very few involve the sort of random attacks the public generally associate with terrorism.

The Jihad side, on the other hand, has a number of glaring omissions, inclusion of which would add 24 victims to the “Jihad” column:

• While the “right wing” side contains several iffy personal disputes, the killing of 10 Americans by DC snipers John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo is omitted, despite clear declarations of motive by the killers. This was an extremely high profile case wherein much is known about the Killers’ intentions.
• The 2011 Triple murder of three Jewish men who had their throats slashed and bodies covered with money and marijuana; authorities now assert Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was responsible for the attack.
• ISIS supporter Justin Sullivan’s murder and robbery of an elderly neighbor to raise funds to purchase an assault weapon for use in a Jihadist attack. This omission is especially strange because New America uses identical motives for robbery/murder to bolster the “right wing” column. Sullivan was arrested by the FBI in the midst of planning a public massacre and is awaiting trial on terrorism charges.
• Jihadist ISIS supporter Ali Muhammad Brown’s murder of four people in three separate incidents: the killing of two homosexual Seattle men lured via Grindr; the shooting of a random motorist in Seattle and the shooting of another man in New Jersey. Brown told NJ police his motive was “anger over US foreign policy.” Brown was on a federal terror watch list and was the first person charged with terrorism under NJ law.
• Michael Julius Ford, who killed one and wounded five after opening fire on co-workers at a Denver warehouse, after co-workers reportedly made fun of his Muslim religion.
• Sulejmen Talovic’s murder of five people in a shooting rampage in Salt Lake City, Utah. Talovic was filmed during his rampage and was purportedly heard to shout “Allahu akbar” during the assault. Talovic wore a miniature Koran around his neck during the attack; his parents told authorities he may have been influenced by “outside forces.”

Excluding these killings at the time of publication altered the count from 50/39 in favor of Jihadis to a more narrative-fulfilling 26/39.

Today, the count would be 118/48 if the “right wing” column was to stand unchallenged. Despite dozens of published articles trumpeting the supposed danger to the public from “right wing extremists,” to my knowledge none have been written correcting the record. Despite the obvious manipulation, the increasing numbers of Jihad-motivated attacks, the prevailing narrative of right wing violence is still being spread.

*According to Gallup, about 40% of Americans identify as conservative, vs 21% who identify as liberal. Only .9% are Muslim. This is the clear elephant in the room. The relative threat from Jihadist Muslims is clearly much higher.

**According to various reports, the FEAR (“Forever enduring, always ready”) militia was made up of American service members who were enchanted with an anarchist “true patriots” adversary in the popular Rainbow Six video game franchise. The group is likened to the Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street protest movements in a December 2011 Game Informer article, which the group used to recruit new members. The game was never released.