Mandalay Bay Hotel, Las Vegas. Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh. Walmart, El Paso.
These shootings are a grave reminder of the epidemic of self-radicalization sweeping the United States. Today, lone-wolf attacks in the US are more deadly than ever before and are often tied to white supremacist ideologies, which disproportionately impact minority communities. Combatting this threat requires new approaches to traditional counter-terrorism measures, including tightening gun laws, increasing collaboration with social media companies, and developing of new artificial intelligence algorithms. However, these new techniques must balance a fine line between being effective and respecting civil liberties, such as freedom of speech.
What Lone-Wolf Attacks Look Like Today
Although the frequency of lone-wolf extremism is actually lower today than it has been historically in the United States, attacks are generally more deadly. One reason for this increase in danger might be the more common use of high-power firearms, which tends to produce higher casualty rates.
As attacks have grown in the severity of their effects, they have also grown in the severity of their cause. Motivations for lone-wolf attacks today are often tied to white supremacist and anti-government ideologies, while in the past they were more closely linked with Islamic extremism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, “the far right has been responsible for 73 percent of domestic extremist-related fatalities.” Additionally, from 1990-2016, far-right extremists have killed nearly twice as many people than Islamic extremists in the United States when excluding the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The data shows that the United States is facing a shift from foreign-inspired terrorist threats linked to Islamic extremism to the homegrown white-nationalist linked lone-wolves.
White nationalist attacks often target minority communities, which attackers view as displacing white people in society. Consequently, minority communities are at a disproportionate risk of lone-wolf terrorism. African American churches, synagogues, and mosques have been among repeated targets of lone-wolf violence. The prevalence of minority-targeted attacks has left many wondering how to best safeguard minority communities.
Searching for Solutions
While increased vigilance around commonly targeted sites of gatherings is a good first step, it is neither a sustainable nor popular solution. There are simply not enough resources to guard every location under threat. In light of this obstacle, the most pressing question seems to be how the government can stop people from self-radicalizing to the point of violence against these communities in the first place. In fact, the proliferation of white nationalist violence recently led the Department of Homeland Security to shift more resources to address this threat, which symbolizes a shift in national counterterrorism efforts away from Islamic extremism since 9/11.
The National Institute of Justice suggests that the most effective method of stopping lone-wolf attacks is to disrupt multiple points in the stages of self-radicalization. The Institute outlines six stages of self-radicalization, with the final stage being the execution of a terrorist attack. Removing the enabler, or one who often unknowingly provides the lone wolf with the needed weapons, is an essential though controversial step. Oftentimes, the enabler is an unsuspecting friend, family member, or retailer who gives the lone wolf access to weapons, including military-grade firearms, such as the semi-automatic WASR-10 rifle that the El Paso shooter was legally allowed to buy from Romania and have delivered to his local gun store.
Many have proposed legislation to make this kind of enabling more difficult. For instance, there is growing support for passing “red flag” laws that would bar individuals from buying firearms if they are deemed to be a danger to society or themselves. Some are also calling for measures to reduce the number of military-grade firearms in circulation, such as through a federal ban or buyback program, in order to reduce lone wolves’ access to the means for their attacks.
Another and more widely accepted point of intervention is during the broadcasting of intent phase. Studies show that since 9/11, 76 percent of lone wolves clearly communicated their intent through “spoken statements, threats, letters, manifestos, and videotaped proclamations.” While these attackers act alone, they often communicate with an online community of like-minded individuals. This presents another pre-attack opportunity for law enforcement to apprehend suspects.
The Obstacles to Effective Counter-Terrorism
Though these interventions seem promising, they raise concerns about the preservation of civil liberties. Many of these preventative measures, for instance, require surveilling American citizens, which is harder to justify legally than surveilling foreigners under the Patriot Act. This restricted access to information is a major distinguishing factor between combating foreign and domestic extremism. Given the increasing threat from domestic lone-wolf terrorists, as opposed to foreign ones, this limitation poses a challenge to law enforcement hoping to stymy lone-wolf attacks. Additionally, because many forms of hate speech are protected under the First Amendment, the FBI usually cannot get a warrant for a person it has been monitoring until that person makes a specific threat against a target.
However, the inability of law enforcement to take concrete action on the basis of non-specific yet alarming content could potentially be compensated for by private sector support. Specifically, powerful technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple could work with U.S. law enforcement to crack down on hate speech and extremist propaganda online. As these companies and law enforcement both tend to struggle with having enough human resources to comb through all the potential messages of intent, collaboration could be in both of their interests. Deep learning algorithms that spot and organize extremist context across platforms could also enhance such collaboration. These algorithms provide law enforcement with an organized list of people who pose the most serious threats, allowing them to focus on apprehending soon-to-be terrorists.
With the help of cutting-edge deep learning technology and the partnership between the public and private sectors, it seems that the United States may have promising ways to fight self-radicalized terror more effectively in the future. Despite these possible solutions, however, it may still take time to realize any significant progress in combating lone-wolf attacks. In the meantime, Americans should remain extremely vigilant about protecting themselves and minority communities to the best that they can.
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