• FBI: Boogaloo Extremists Acquired 3D-Printed Machine Gun Parts

    Depending on their configuration, 3D-printed guns contain no metal parts, and thus can be smuggled into metal detectors-protected venues. In a criminal complaint filed against a West Virginia men selling 3D-printed gun components, the FBI says his customers included multiple members of the Boogaloo movement, a heavily armed extremist anti-government group.

  • An Analytic Framework for Assessing Risks of U.S. Post-Election Violence

    Today and the days ahead are the most consequential period for the United States in at least a generation. Kyle Murphy writes that when he served as a senior analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, heI developed frameworks to evaluate the risk of election-related instability overseas. “As a National Security Council staff member at the White House, I relied on similar tools to help prepare for and organize U.S. government support for nine elections in West Africa.” He applied these tools to this year’s U.S. presidential election.

  • The Terrorist Threat from the Fractured Far Right

    Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware argue that the right-wing threat is fracturing, with a wide range of overlapping groups and radical individuals posing a risk of violence that may overwhelm counterterrorism officials.

  • Easing Election-Related Tensions: Lessons for the U.S. from Elections Abroad

    Public officials and the news media have broken through the public consciousness with the message that the results of the election may not be known on the night of 3 November, potentially helping to ease tensions in the immediate aftermath. Rose Jackson writes that there has not, however, been sufficient messaging about what the voting and counting period will look like specifically in each state. “This lack of groundwork creates a dangerous potential for misunderstanding and malfeasance — and by extension, for dangerous disinformation.”

  • Trump and Biden Ignore How the War on Drugs Fuels Violence in Latin America

    By Luisa Farah Schwartzman

    Increasingly, people are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to escape a cycle of violence to which the United States continues to contribute. Immigration is just the tip of the iceberg. Murder rates in Latin America have skyrocketed since the 1980s and are still among the highest in the world. This is because Latin America became the battleground for the war on drugs.

  • The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States

    White supremacists and other far-right extremists accounted for two-thirds of domestic terrorist attacks and plots so far in 2020, but those by antifascist and other leftist groups are rising, according to a new report on U.S. political violence. The Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has just released a report which found that domestic terrorism only accounted for five deaths between January and August. But it cites a worrisome trend in which armed far-right and far-left extremists are confronting one another on the streets of U.S. cities against the backdrop of racial justice protests, anti-lockdown demonstrations, and other social and political issues.

  • 68 Percent of Firearm Deaths Are from Self-Harm, Majority in Older Men in Rural Regions

    A new study of gun injuries and deaths in Ontario found that 68 percent of firearm-related deaths were from self-harm, and they most often occurred in older men living in rural regions, pointing to the need for targeted prevention efforts.

  • Black Police Officers Disciplined Disproportionately for Misconduct: Study

    An examination of racial differences in the disciplining of police officers in three of the largest U.S. cities consistently found that Black officers were more frequently disciplined for misconduct than white officers, despite an essentially equal number of allegations being leveled. This included allegations of severe misconduct.

  • Michigan Plotters Also Targeted Virginia Governor: FBI

    Two of the six men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer participated in a discussions earlier this year with other members of far-right militia groups about abducting Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.

  • Plot to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Grew from the Militia Movement’s Toxic Mix of Constitutional Falsehoods and Half-Truths

    By John E. Finn

    The U.S. militia movement has long been steeped in a peculiar – and unquestionably mistaken – interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and civil liberties. This is true of an armed militia group that calls itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently revealed plot to overthrow Michigan’s government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. As I wrote in Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution, published in 2019, the crux of the militia movement’s devotion to what I have called the “alt-right constitution” is a toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths.

  • The Alleged Plot in Michigan Isn’t an Anomaly. The Domestic Terrorism Threat Is Rising.

    Last week’s announcement by federal authorities that six men had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) (seven other individuals were arrested on related state charges) is a chilling example of the evolving domestic terrorist threat facing America. Kevin K. McAleenan, the former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Thomas K. Plofchan III, the former counterterrorism adviser to the secretary, write that the arrests in Michigan represent “one of the most significant incidents highlighting law enforcement concerns that domestic extremists.” They add that “the predominant terrorist threat at home today is increasingly domestic in nature,” and that “Within the domestic terrorist threat landscape, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, and specifically white-supremacist extremists, represent the ‘most persistent and lethal threat,’ according to the recent DHS threat assessment.”

  • Emboldened Far-Right Groups Challenge Cities, States

    Last month, when wildfires threatened rural Oregon communities, another unwelcome phenomenon accompanied them: armed vigilantes blocking entry to outsiders, based on false rumors that protesters had not only started the fires, but also were there to loot the evacuated homes. White supremacists represent the top and most lethal domestic terror threat to Americans, the Department of Homeland Security said Oct. 6, when it released its first-ever Homeland Threat Assessment. “I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years,” wrote Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, in the introduction to the assessment.

  • Lessons from Embedding with the Michigan Militia – 5 Questions Answered about the Group Allegedly Plotting to Kidnap a Governor

    By Amy Cooter

    Details are still emerging about the men arrested on federal and state charges related to an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Federal prosecutions can take months and even years, so it will be quite some time before a full analysis of this situation becomes possible. But as a scholar who has spent the last 12 years studying the U.S. domestic militia movement, including three years of fieldwork embedded with militias in Michigan, I believe several themes will remain important, wherever the details lead.

  • Michigan Kidnapping Plot, Like So Many Other Extremist Crimes, Foreshadowed on Social Media

    More and more, far-right extremist violence is preceded by online declarations on social media. Craig Timberg and Isaac Stanley-Becker write that “such online declarations, brimming with anger and potentially violent intent, have become staples of extremism-fueled crime news in recent years,” and that “Before [such crimes] become real, [discussions of them] percolate online, courtesy of a social media ecosystem that is ubiquitous, barely moderated and well suited to helping aggrieved people find each other.” The plot by extremist Michigan militias to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer was no exception.

  • Domestic Terrorism and the U.S. Elections

    By Brian Michael Jenkins

    The country is deeply divided. The political system is polarized. Bizarre conspiracy theories have entered mainstream political discourse. There seem to be messaging efforts designed to delegitimize next month’s elections. The president refuses to say that he will abide by the results. One official talked on social media about buying ammunition and preparing for violence. Some pundits are warning of civil war. The nation’s anxiety is palpable and understandable. Older Americans have a slight advantage in avoiding alarm. They personally recall the turbulent late ’60s and early ’70s with the country at war abroad and at war with itself at home. American institutions held then, but can they do so again now? What are the prospects for domestic terrorism in the context of U.S. elections?