Homegrown Extremists

Per the U.S. Department of Justice, Homegrown violent extremists have been defined as “those who encourage, endorse, condone, justify, or support the commission of a violent criminal act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social, or economic goals” (U.S. Department of Justice). Per authors, Mark Hamm and Ramon Spaaj, a lone wolf terrorist can be identified as the construction and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence committed by a single individual who does not receive orders, direction or material support from outside sources to pursue political change linked to a formulated ideology (pg., 3). Based on this definition, it is clear to me that Eric Rudolph can be identified as a homegrown violent extremist,
When the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice, they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern, which ultimately enabled his actions to commit terrorist acts against others. Another enabler involving his attacks because of homosexuality was in response to the attempt to force society to accept and recognize this behavior where he believed that making society accept that sort of behavior should be met with "force if necessary" (CNN). Based on the definition of a lone wolf terrorist, I believe Eric Rudolph meets the criteria to be identified as a lone wolf terrorist. His actions were solely based on his beliefs without orders from an outside entity and with no motive to accomplish goals set by some organization. His actions were purely self-motivated because of his Christian
Department of Justice). Moreover, a lone wolf terrorist is an individual who chooses to act as a homegrown violent extremist in which a single individual creates and exploits fear through violence or the threat of violence without receiving orders, direction or material support from outside sources to pursue political change linked to a formulated ideology (Hamm & Spaaj, pg., 3). It is imperative that homegrown violent extremist, particularly, lone wolf terrorist is closely researched to help identify when an individual might be identified as person who contains motives to commit domestic terrorism. This will help the fight against terrorism, especially against domestic terrorism and lone wolf terrorism. It is important that the fight against lone wolf terrorism is difficult to combat since it is hard to identify lone wolf terrorists until after the fact that the criminal activity has been committed. To help combat both homegrown violent extremist and lone wolf terrorism, I think the individuals I introduced above should be closely examined to help identify the terrorist-like characteristics of Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, Omar Mateen and Theodore Kaczynski to help identify such individuals before they conduct their