Muslim-Hatin' Rep: But Are White Terrorists Even Terrorists, Really?

Congressfireplug Peter King (R-NY Somehow) was not at all impressed by last week's report from the New America Foundation, which found that more Americans have been killed by rightwing terrorism than by Muslim extremists since 9/11. King serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, so he'll have you know that mere numbers don't tell the whole story, and also the report was carried in the  New York Times,  so it's obviously worthless. There's just no way that white supremacists and sovereign citizens are more dangerous than jihadis, because Pete King does not believe that. 

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On ABC's This Week Sunday, King explained that since jihadis have killed a terrifying total of 28 people in the USA since 9/11, and non-jihadi terror attacks have killed a negligible 48, radical Islam is definitely the far greater threat:

Every murder is horrible ... There is no comparison between these white supremacists and an internationally coordinated movement which, if the attacks were not stopped, we could have thousands and thousands of deaths.

King was frankly disgusted by the comparison, because come on, people, everyone knows Muslims are far scarier than rightwing guys with large weapons caches and their own weird dreams of inflicting mass casualties:

"Everything should be investigated, everything should be stopped,” King said. “But to compare these deranged white supremacists with an organized international terrorist movement, that's The New York Times at its worst.”

Obviously. Because Islamic terrorists are organized and want to kill us all -- in increments of 28 per decade, more if possible -- while white supremacists are by definition deranged lone nuts who have no organizational ties whatsoever, and more importantly, speako the English.

Now, as we noted last week, the New America Foundation study did find that there was a higher number of would-be jihadis charged with terrorism or related crimes, despite the higher body count for rightwing terror attacks, which could either mean that good ol' American know-how is more effective at killin', or that law enforcement simply puts greater emphasis on catching jihadi plots -- or in some cases, manufacturing them with the help of criminal informants.

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  The New York Times report also noted that a separate survey of law enforcement agencies actually rates rightwing extremists a greater concern than foreign-inspired terrorists:

A survey to be published this week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University.

“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,” said Dr. Kurzman, whose study is to be published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum.

Well, maybe, but that's also probably because local law enforcement agencies have all been bamboozled by the biased reporting of the New York Times. 

Also too, just in case total numbers are of any concern to you, the New America Foundation study excluded acts of mass violence that didn't have an identifiable ideological component, such as the Sandy Hook massacre or the shootings at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Since 9/11, the total number of victims in those perfectly ordinary non-terrorism mass killings is far higher than the number killed by terrorists, just as the total of mass killing victims is dwarfed by the over 30,000 people killed with guns in homicides, suicides, and accidents every year -- a total that in 2015 is likely to surpass the number of people killed in car crashes for the first time ever.

What we are saying is, if you see someone with a headscarf trying to board an airplane, you should panic and call the police.

[ NYT / The Hill / The Atlantic / Law Enforcement Assessment of the Violent Extremism Threat ]