The January 2011 shootings--in which a lone gunman killed six people at a Tucson, Arizona, shopping center--served as a reminder of the threat posed by militant extremism in the United States. Similar acts of violence in the last few years--such as the suicide plane crash into an IRS building in Texas and the 2009 shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum--have brought renewed attention to the dangers posed by fringe political extremism. Although the frequency of these types of attacks has decreased in recent years, "lone wolf" violence is on the rise. The FBI is particularly concerned by such threats because they are performed by individuals who are unaffiliated with any larger movement and are, therefore, hard to detect. As with the case of Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, it is difficult for authorities to determine whether such an act of violence falls under the legal definition of "domestic terrorism," a determination that invokes much harsher sentencing guidelines. Some experts criticize a lack of consistency in the way U.S. domestic terrorism laws are applied, which can lead to dissimilar procedures and outcomes for similar cases.
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