An Empirical Examination on the Severity of Lone-Actor Terrorist Attacks

Turner, Noah; Chermak, Steven M.; Freilich, Joshua D.

doi:10.1177/00111287211022609

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 49 publications

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“…LAGFV encompasses a broad range of offending that is perpetrated generally by one person, although occasionally perpetrators work in dyads or triads, finding connection with others who share their violent interests, and together furtively plan and conduct an attack ( De Roy et al, 2016 ; Turner et al, 2021 ). The use of this umbrella term serves as an overarching conceptualization for individuals who seek to carry out targeted violence against others for political, social, or personal reasons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the role of grievance and fixation in lone actor violence

Brooks

Barry-Walsh²

2022

Front. Psychol.

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In pursuit of public discourse, there is a risk of a simple polarity in thinking, meaning acts of public/mass violence, or those where there is a risk of public violence are categorized as terrorist acts or not. The reliance on categorization, and the pursuit of assigning ideology, diminishes the complexity of factors contributing to these forms of offending. This approach misses a critical opportunity to understand the pathways to violence and reduces the significance of comorbid or co-occurring factors that give rise to the violence. Lone Actor Grievance Fueled Violence (LAGFV) is a recently utilized term based on mounting evidence that those who seek to perpetrate acts of lone actor violence, whether this be those where a terrorist motivation can be assigned, a school attacks, workplace attack, or an attack in a public place, are commonly fueled by grievance and fixation. LAGFV at this juncture is a blurry construct without definitive rules and boundaries, and instead provides a guiding conceptualization of a diverse group of offenders who commit targeted violence towards others. The current review contends that LAGFV emerges through the perceived thwarting of psychological needs and the central task for clinicians and other professional services lies in understanding the unique pathways and contributing factors that give rise to violence for each specific individual/case. The review contends that is not fit to determine whether an act is of ideological significance, or constituting terrorism, without understanding the psychosocial and circumstantial factors contributing to the violence.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the role of grievance and fixation in lone actor violence

Brooks

Barry-Walsh²

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Right-wing extremism and lone-actor violence in Italy: the case of the 2018 Macerata shooting

Marone

2022

Mod. Italy

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On 3 February 2018, in the town of Macerata, an Italian citizen with far-right sympathies deliberately fired several shots from his car at nine African immigrants, injuring six. The article argues that this shooting can be considered an act of lone-actor terrorism, an anomaly in the Italian context. Based on the social science literature on this subject, the paper analyses the profile of the shooter and the dynamics of the attack. Moreover, adopting a relational perspective to radicalisation, it examines the attacker's interactions: on the one hand, he was in contact with different political organisations that could represent ‘echo chambers’ for the tacit validation or even the justification and amplification of radical beliefs, including on the relation between immigration and security; on the other hand, he was not subject to their discipline and social control. This peripheral social position helps explain this case of lone-actor terrorism, in a national context where far-right mobilisation and violence have historically assumed collective forms.

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