White Supremacists More Dangerous To America Than Foreign Terrorists, Study Says

By Julia Craven, the Huffington Post

Nine people were added to a long list of lives taken by domestic terrorism when Dylann Roof allegedly began shooting inside a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17.

At least 48 people have been killed stateside by right-wing extremists in the 14 years since since the September 11 attacks — almost twice as many as were killed by self-identified jihadists in that time, according to a study released Wednesday by the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., research center. The study found that radical anti-government groups or white supremacists were responsible for most of the terror attacks.

The data counters many conventional thoughts on what terrorism is and isn’t. Since Sept. 11, many Americans attribute terror attacks to Islamic extremists instead of those in the right wing. But the numbers don’t back up this popular conception, said Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kurzman is co-authoring a study with David Schanzer of Duke University, set to be published Thursday, that asks police departments to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction.

Law enforcement agencies reported they were more concerned about the activities of right-wing extremist groups than Islamic extremists in their jurisdictions (about 74 percent versus 39 percent) due to the “menacing” rhetoric used by some of these groups — and that they were training officers to take action when they saw signs of potentially violent individuals, Kurzman and Schanzer found…

The accused Charleston shooter is currently being investigated under domestic terrorism charges by the Department of Justice — a move that acknowledges the long history of anti-black terrorist attacks…

And while most officially acknowledged anti-black terrorism cases occurred during the eras of slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, as recent news demonstrate, this type of terrorism is still an ongoing concern.

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