The news that the alleged El Paso shooter appears to have acted out of a belief in a violent white supremacist ideology has renewed calls for a federal law criminalizing “domestic terrorism.”
But what exactly would that entail?
Although “domestic terrorism” is defined in the Patriot Act of 2001, there is no specific federal crime covering acts of terrorism inside the U.S. that are not connected to al Qaeda, ISIS, other officially designated international terror groups or their sympathizers.
