Weapon Choice and American Political Violence: A Comparison of Terrorists and Other Felons in Federal Custody

The criminal use of firearms presents a unique challenge to policymakers and is the subject of scientific study in fields such as criminology, public health, sociology, and law. Previous research has described firearm use by terrorists in the United States as uniformly common; however, little systematic attention has been focused on this phenomenon. Although valuable, progress in this area has been hampered by the absence of reliable quantitative information. Using data from the American Terrorism Study and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, we examine the firearm-offending characteristics of 923 federal felons and 336 terrorists.