• Al Qaeda Renews Its Focus on Anti-Semitism and Attacking Israel

    For decades, Al Qaeda has used the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rally support for themselves and unify disparate Islamist movements under its banner. The terrorist organization, however, has failed to carry out attacks against Israel or against Jews in other countries, leading to criticism of Al Qaeda by other jihadist groups. In recent weeks, Al Qaeda has directed an unusual portion of its propaganda toward encouraging attacks on Israel, Jewish institutions, and Jewish people.

  • In Launching of Anti-Crime Campaign, Biden Cites Old Data

    Ninety percent of guns found at crime scenes were sold by just 5% of gun dealers, President Joe Biden said Wednesday while unveiling his anti-crime initiative. But the 2000 ATF report has long been considered out of date, and irrelevant to today’s gun control debate. Supporters of the president’s initiative and gun-safety groups note that Biden had to rely on the 2000 report because there are no more recent ones: In 2003, Congress, under pressure from the gun lobby, passed legislation that prevents ATF from releasing the data.

  • “Red Flag” Gun Laws and State Efforts to Block Local Legislation

    “Red flag” gun laws—which allow law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from a person at risk of harming themselves or others—are gaining attention at the state and federal levels, but are under scrutiny by legislators who deem them unconstitutional. Legal scholars outline how such laws can reduce gun violence and still protect constitutional rights.

  • Inquiry Details 9 Missed Opportunities to Thwart 2017 British Concert Bombing

    Families of the 22 people who died in the 2017 terrorist bombing of a concert at Britain’s Manchester Arena are urging authorities to mount corporate manslaughter prosecutions against the firm responsible for security on the night of the attack and the company that runs the arena. Their demand came Thursday in the wake of the release of a damning official report into the terror attack that detailed nine missed opportunities to thwart the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert.

  • Foreign Disinformation Feeds U.S. Domestic Terrorism, Official Warns

    Newly unveiled efforts to combat a growing domestic terrorism threat in the United States will have to find a way to overcome a major obstacle: carefully crafted campaigns by foreign countries and terrorist groups to incite violence.

  • Drop the Charges Against Minor Capitol Hill Defendants

    Rioter who assaulted police or vandalized the Capitol should be prosecuted. But the majority of those who came to the Capitol on 6 January were “gawkers” who just wanted to see the spectacle, or to non-violently express their political opinion, and merely walked through a public office building, The charges against them should be dropped.

  • COVID Gives Rise to Extremism and Violence

    Both right- and left-wing extremism flourished during the pandemic year, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its latest report. Most alarmingly, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that 40 percent of the 33,300 far-right extremists in the country were categorized as “violence-oriented,” the highest proportion ever. And Germany’s security forces have themselves come under new scrutiny.

  • Rising Trends in Suicide by Firearms in Young Americans

    Deaths from suicide are rising in the United States. These rising trends are especially alarming because global trends in suicide are on a downward trajectory. Moreover, in the U.S., the major mode of suicide among young Americans is by firearms.

  • Unmedicated, Untreated Brain Illness is Likely in Mass Shooters: Study

    The first analysis of medical evidence on domestic mass shooters in the U.S. finds that a large majority of perpetrators have psychiatric disorders for which they have received no medication or other treatment.

  • The Many Ways Domestic Violence Foreshadows Mass Shootings

    The San Jose transit shooting is the latest to illustrate the deadly connection between intimate partner violence and mass murder. How are these seemingly separate issues intertwined, and what can be done to save lives?

  • A Sea Change in Counterterrorism

    Even before the attempted insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January, the threat of domestic extremism was clear, with terrorist attacks by racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) eclipsing the threat posed by jihadist groups such as the Islamic State. The Biden administration will soon release a new strategy document for fighting domestic terrorism.

  • What Are “Ghost Guns,” a Target of Biden’s Anti-Crime Effort?

    It’s not expensive or difficult to produce large numbers of untraceable firearms in the United States. Whether for private use, sale on the criminal market or arming violent extremists, it’s actually startlingly cheap and easy to mass-produce firearms that police can’t track – what are often called “ghost guns.”

  • In Oregon, New Gun Violence Restraining Orders Appear to Be Used as Intended

    Extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), also known as gun violence restraining orders, are civil court orders that grant temporary restrictions on purchasing and possessing firearms for individuals determined by a civil court judge to be at extreme risk of committing violence against themselves or others. A new study found that while ERPOs are commonly considered as a tool to remove guns from dangerous individuals, they should also be considered as a tool to prevent gun purchases by dangerous individuals.

  • Urban Crime Fell by over a Third around the World During COVID-19 Shutdowns

    A new analysis of crime rates in 27 cities across 23 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East has found that stay-at-home policies during the pandemic led to an overall drop in police-recorded crime of 37 percent across all the sites in the study.

  • The Evolution of Extremist Groups

    Early online support for the Boogaloos, one of the groups implicated in the January 2021 attack on the Capitol, followed the same mathematical pattern as ISIS—despite the stark ideological, geographical and cultural differences between their forms of extremism, a new study finds. The findings of the study suggest strategies to limit the growth of groups like the Boogaloos and ISIS.