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FBI: Active Shooter Incidents Fell in 2022 but Remained Relatively High
The FBI is reporting a slight decline in the number of “active shooter” incidents last year but says the tally still surpassed the levels seen in most of the last five years. The FBI defines an active shooter as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” such as a school or night club.
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SPFPA Disney Local under DOL Investigation
Three officers of a Walt Disney Land local police security union allegedly received payoffs to affiliate with a national union, according to sources, and the U.S. Department of Labor is now investigating.
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U.S. Cities Less Violent Than Two Years Ago, Data Shows
The truth about American cities: Despite popular belief, they are much less violent than they were just a couple of years ago. Consider New York: The city witnessed a staggering 50% increase in homicides in 2020 and 2021. But last year, they fell by 11% to 433, and so far this year, they’ve dropped another 7% to 113, according to city police data.
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Officers of China’s National Police Charged in Transnational Repression Schemes Targeting U.S. Residents
Forty defendants accused of Creating fake social media accounts to harass PRC dissidents, and Working with employees of a U.S. telecommunications company to remove dissidents from company’s platform.
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Two Arrested for Operating Illegal Overseas Police Station of the Chinese Government
Defendants Aare New York City residents who allegedly operated the police station in lower Manhattan and destroyed evidence when confronted by the FBI. The defendants and their co-conspirators helped the Chinese intelligence service locate Chinese dissidents living in the United States.
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Why Do Mass Shooters Kill? It’s About More Than Having a Grievance
The year 2023 is still young, and already there have been at least 146 mass shooting events in the U.S. on record, including the killing of five people in a Louisville, Kentucky, bank that the shooter livestreamed. There were 647 mass shootings in 2022 and 693 in 2021, resulting in 859 and 920 deaths, respectively. Since 2015, over 19,000 people have been shot and wounded or killed in mass shootings. In the wake of most shootings, the news media and the public reflexively ask: What was the killer’s motive?
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Study Links Hard-Right Social Media with Incidents of Civil Unrest
An increase in social media activity on “hard-right” platforms — those that purport to represent viewpoints not welcome on “mainstream” platforms — contributes to rightwing civil unrest in the United States, according to a new study. A new Yale-led study finds evidence that social media activity on hard-right platforms contributes to political unrest offline. “The magnitude of the effect we found is modest but two characteristics of social media and civil unrest caution against dismissing it,” said Yale sociologist Daniel Karell.
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New Statistical Model Accurately Predicts Monthly U.S. Gun Homicides
The United States experiences a staggeringly high rate of gun homicides, but accurately predicting these incidents – especially on a monthly basis – has been a significant challenge. A new methodology, overcoming limitations of official government data, could change that.
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The ‘Incelosphere’ and Incel Violence: A Worsening Problem?
Should incel ideology be considered as extremist? Here is a summary of the research on how violent extremist language has increased over time as different online platforms have emerged and shutdown within the incel online ecosystem.
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Major Foreign Terror Attack on U.S. “Almost Inconceivable” Now
Foreign terrorist groups, including some Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates, may have the desire to launch major attacks on U.S. soil, but decades of counterterrorism work have made carrying out such an operation close to impossible at the moment, a top U.S. homeland security official said.
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MI5 Increases Terror Threat Level in Northern Ireland to “Severe”
There has been increased dissident republican activity in Northern Ireland, including the attempted murder of a senior police officer last month. MI5 believed it had dealt a major blow to the New IRA in 2020 when police arrested nine suspected leaders of the organization, but the New IRA appears to have regrouped.
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How Many Guns Are There in the U.S.?
We’ve heard for years that there are more guns in the U.S. than people, but a precise accounting remains elusive. Federal legislation that would track gun sales or establish a nationwide handgun registry has been proposed — to much resistance from the gun lobby. Pinpointing the number of guns in circulation could help us better understand the relationship between gun sales and gun violence.
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Guns Now Kill More Children and Young Adults Than Car Crashes
For the past few decades, motor vehicle crashes were the most common cause of death from injury— and the leading cause of death in general—among children, teenagers, and young adults in the U.S. But now, firearms exceed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury-related death for people ages one to 24.
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Hard-Right Social Media Activities Lead to Civil Unrest: Study
Does activity on hard-right social media lead to civil unrest? With the emergence and persistent popularity of hard-right social media platforms such as Gab, Parler, and Truth Social, it is important to understand the impact they are having on society and politics.
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“He Has a Battle Rifle”: Police Feared Uvalde Gunman’s AR-15
In previously unreleased interviews, police who responded to the Robb Elementary shooting told investigators they were cowed by the shooter’s military-style rifle. This drove their decision to wait for a Border Patrol SWAT team to engage him, which took more than an hour.
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More headlines
The long view
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
“The Federal Government Is Gone”: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
By Hannah Allam
As President Donald Trump guts the main federal office dedicated to preventing terrorism, states say they’re left to take the lead in spotlighting threats. Some state efforts are robust, others are fledgling, and yet other states are still formalizing strategies for addressing extremism. With the federal government largely retreating from focusing on extremist dangers, prevention advocates say the threat of violent extremism is likely to increase.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”
How DHS Laid the Groundwork for More Intelligence Abuse
I&A, the lead intelligence unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —long plagued by politicized targeting, permissive rules, and a toxic culture —has undergone a transformation over the last two years. Spencer Reynolds writes that this effort falls short. “Ultimately, Congress must rein in I&A,” he adds.