That last year was one of the deadliest years from bigotry.
The Anti-Deformation League report on Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2022 was just released and some of their findings are:
All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, who typically commit most such killings each year but only occasionally are responsible for all (the last time this occurred was 2012). Left-wing extremists engage in violence ranging from assaults to fire-bombings and arsons, but since the late 1980s have not often targeted people with deadly violence. The same cannot be said for domestic Islamist extremists, but deadly incidents linked to Islamist extremism have decreased significantly in the U.S. over the past five years.
White supremacists commit the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists. Again, this is primarily due to mass shootings. Only one of the murders was committed by a right-wing anti-government extremist—the lowest number since 2017.
[…]
Almost all the killings in 2022 (93%) were committed with firearms. This has been a consistent fact of extremist violence for years. Although many people may think of extremists as employing weapons such as bombs and explosives, it is firearms—plentiful, accessible and often laxly-regulated in the U.S.—that are actually the deadly weapon of choice for American extremists. Indeed, in each of the past five years over 80% of the victims of deadly extremist violence were killed with firearms, a consequence of the country’s failure to take meaningful action to deal with gun violence.
I think most of us sadly are not surprised, I think this just put in writing what we knew.
The report looked at all types of extreme violence and it confirms what the LGBTQ+ community knew.
As in most years since the late 1980s, lethal extremist violence in 2022 was heavily dominated by right-wing extremism. In fact, every one of the 25 murders documented in this report had ties to forms of right-wing extremism, including white supremacy, anti-government extremism and right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Over the past decade, right-wing extremists have committed the majority of extremist-related killings in all years but one—2016, the year of the shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a person motivated by Islamist extremism. Of the 444 people killed at the hands of extremists over the past 10 years, 335 (or 75%) were killed by right-wing extremists.
My personal concern is that these white supremacy, antigovernment extremism and right-wing conspiracy theorists are armed to the teeth!
The right always brings up the rioting in 2017 in Washington state but one, they were not armed, two no one was killed. How many right-wing protesters were armed when they were protesting drag queens were armed?
Moreover, the far right in this country is large, comprising many movements, including multiple white supremacist and anti-government extremist movements as well as a variety of single-issue extremists and conspiracy-based movements. Most of these movements have some degree of association with violence, up to and including terrorist plots and attacks. Even the newest right-wing movements to emerge in recent years—movements that include incels and other toxic masculinity extremists, QAnon adherents and anti-government boogalooers—quickly developed violent track records.
We are not the only ones getting murdered because of animosity…
Finally, there are numerous incidents where extremists have opened fire on law enforcement officers trying to arrest them, to serve a search warrant or engaging in a similar activity. Some of these violent responses have resulted in significant injuries and deaths among law enforcement. However, such reactive incidents are not included here; rather, the focus is on extremists seeking to commit a mass killing.
And right-wing politicians are stirring them up.
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