Is the threat of ISIS inspired homegrown violence real?

It would seem that ISIS is inspired violence is putting wealthy western countries at greater risk – the recent attack in Sydney in which Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson were killed, preceded by the separate murders of Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo here in Canada. Our intuition tells us that these are new phenomenon representing a new threat to our safety. 

But, is that a correct conclusion? 

Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index shows decreasing violent crime in every region in Canada except Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the past 20 years violent crime in the United States dropped by 48 percent. These statistics indicate that we are safer now than ever.

What if ISIS inspired violent crime is not a new threat? What if it is actually existing baseline violent crime re-branded as radical Islam? In other words, what if ISIS inspired actors would have acted violently in any event?

CNN supplies a list of the 25 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history (CLICK HERE). These 25 horrific acts stretch from 1949 to 2013. Only one appears to have any link to radical Islam (November 5, 2009 - Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 people and injures 32 at Fort Hood, Texas). Two are linked to the U.S. Postal Service. Four are school shootings.

What if the intuitive narrative – the one that ISIS is happy to fuel – is observer bias? What if violent homegrown terrorists would have been violent regardless of the existence of Radical Islam? What if these same “homegrown terrorists” would have simply found another cause of convenience?

On Saturday Ismaaiyl Brinsley murdered two New York City police officers and then killed himself. I am sure that you, like me, first asked “Is he Muslim?” He was not. His twisted cause was revenge for police violence against blacks. But, the current bias when we first learn of the murder of two police officers in NYC is to assume that it’s another act of homegrown terrorism. If he had been Muslim we would almost certainly have added him to the ISIS narrative.

Human beings are notoriously bad at analyzing risk. German professor Gerd Gigerenzer showed that the increase in car travel stemming from people's fear of air travel directly after 9/11 likely led to an increase in traffic fatalities measured in the thousands, and possibly more than the number of actual 9/11 victims. Obsessing about a small risk while ignoring a much larger one is typical human behavior.

Perhaps we are catastrophizing the risk associated with ISIS inspired violence. Perhaps recent ISIS violence is simply baseline violence caused by a mixture of culture and human frailty measured over the population as a whole.

There may be a change in who is at risk. If we assume, for instance, that Michael Zihaf-Bibeau would ultimately have committed some horrific act, then the right conclusion may well be that what ISIS has caused is a shift in the targets. Police and military personnel are now at greater risk. ISIS is the current repository of the disturbed, violent individual and, thus, symbolic targets like soldiers and cops are at higher risk but the risk to the total population remains the same. Indeed symbolic places like Parliament may be at greater risk. Remember the concern that the Columbine murders would inspire more school violence? Remember the phrase “going postal?” 

Perhaps the amount of violence in a population remains more or less constant but the likely victims of this violence shifts as our place in the world shifts.