Texas shooting:My interview
Texas shooting: Global extremist network drives mass shooters, says expert as Allen gunman linked to far-right
“Alberto Testa, professor of Criminology at the University of West London, said the growth of internet forums “gave rise to the so-called alt-right movement”, allowing dangerous individuals to interact with like-minded people.
“Individual attackers are frequently labelled as ‘lone wolves’, implying that they act independently without any connections to groups or movements,” he said.
“However, in several instances, these attackers are part of a transnational ideological network that draws inspiration from violent manifestos and racist, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He said the theories typically railed against the purported “ethnic replacement” of white and Christian populations in Europe and the United States, and served as a common thread connecting these attackers.
“We are witnessing the emergence of a new form of far-right terrorism that is characterised by its ‘post-organisational’ and decentralised structure,” he said. “Unlike traditional far-right organisations with hierarchical leadership structures, this new form is comprised of numerous small cells and individuals who share a common ideology and often interact in online spaces like Telegram and 4chan.”
A report released in 2020 by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies found that far-right plots accounted for “the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994” and that the number of such attacks “has increased substantially over the past six years”.
It found that members of far-right movements were responsible for two-thirds of the attacks and plots in the US in 2019 and 90 per cent of those in 2020.
The Small Arms Survey, an international research institute in Geneva, states there are roughly 393.3 million weapons in the United States, compared to a population of 330 million people. The Gun Violence Archive says there have been 201 mass shootings this year alone, where incidents are defined by the injury or death of four or more people….