Right-wing extremists have killed more people in the United States than have jihadi terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
The problem is: One of statistics cited by the Times is just as dubious now as it was when CNN reported it last week.
— Sacksonville (@JohnEkdahl) June 19, 2015
Part of the Times’ “homegrown radicals” report relies on statistics provided by the International Security Program at the New America Foundation (NAF).
The data currently available on NAF’s website, which accounts only for attacks carried out on American soil by extremists who are either United States citizens or permanent residents, shows that in the last 14 years, 48 people have been killed by “homegrown non-jihadists,” while jihadists have killed 26.
The group’s “deadly attacks” tally has been called into question.
NAF’s definition of “right-wing extremists” is wide-ranging and accounts for multiple ideological groups, including “white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics” and, broadly enough, “other non-Muslim extremists,” as noted by the Times.
The group said specifically that it monitors “those motivated by other ideologies that are non-jihadist in character, for example right wing, left wing, or idiosyncratic beliefs.”
From this, the Times and CNN both get “right-wing extremism.”
The “jihadist” tag, on the other hand, focuses specifically on extremists who have been inspired by jihadist ideology, especially those in connection with al Qaeda and “its affiliated groups,” NAF’s website explains.
“Right-wing extremists,” or “non-Muslim extremists,” have carried out 19 deadly attacks since Sept. 11, whereas Islamic militants have carried out only seven such attacks, according to NAF.
The group’s methodology for categorizing post-9/11 deadly attacks has also been challenged.
“For instance, NAF includes Joshua Cartwright on the list [of non-jihadists]. In 2009, Cartwright was reported to police after beating his wife. Police attempted to arrest him for domestic violence at a local shooting range. A shootout ensued in which two police officers were killed,” conservative blogger John Sexton reported in April 2014.
“NAF apparently includes Cartwright on its list of terrorists because his wife remarked that he was ‘severely disturbed’ by the election of Barack Obama,” he added.
The database inexplicably leaves out several incidents of mass violence in its count, including the infamous Beltway Sniper, John Allen Muhammad, who was responsible for shooting and killing 10 Americans in 2002.
The list also excludes the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting as well as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, despite that these examples could fall under NAF’s claim that it counts violent acts brought on by “idiosyncratic beliefs.”
“If this exercise shows nothing else,” PunditFact reported in January, referring to the statistics cited by the Times, “it is that the number of post-9/11 deaths in the United States from either cause is low, and drawing firm conclusions is dicey.”
RELATED: CNN still running dubious right-wing vs. Muslim extremists statistic
The Times is not, however, without a secondary source for its suggestion that “homegrown radicals” are a bigger threat to the United States than jihadists, and cites a yet-to-be-published survey from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum.
The survey “asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction,” the Times reported. “About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed ‘Al Qaeda-inspired’ violence.”
The article also consulted sociology professor Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, who said, “Law enforcement agencies around the country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the threat from right-wing extremists.”
Separately, John G. Horgan of the University of Massachusetts Lowell said that many scholars now believe that, “the threat of right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.”
The Times also reported that efforts by the Obama administration to “conduct research on right-wing extremism” have been hobbled by Republican lawmakers who saw such efforts as an attempt to “smear conservatives.”
The Times’ Wednesday article marks the second time in eight days that the newspaper has taken up the topic of the United States’ “right-wing terror threat.”
Both reports, which rely heavily on data provided by NAF, make almost no mention of the many foiled jihadist plots in the United States.
