A study conducted by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reveals that law enforcement agencies in the United States are more concerned about “anti-government extremists” than al-Qaeda or ISIS inspired terrorism.

“Law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face,” the report authored by Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer explains.

“They perceive violent extremism to be a much more severe threat nationally than the threat of violent extremism in their own jurisdictions.”

So-called “anti-government violent extremism” linked to “right-wing ideologies “ heads up the list at nearly 74 percent, followed by al-Qaeda inspired violent extremism at 39 percent. Environmental, racist and “anti-capitalist” violent extremism rank low.

House Democrats Call for Crackdown

Following the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, House Democrats demanded the Obama administration issue an “updated assessment” on the dangers posed by “violent right-wing extremist groups” and provide the Department of Homeland Security with more resources to deal with the supposed threat.

Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) circulated a letter addressed to Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson criticizing the DHS for allocating “a disproportionate amount of money and manpower” toward Islamic extremism while “failing to devote adequate resources to violent right-wing extremism.”

A similar report issued last year by the Police Executive Research Forum reached identical results. It states that of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction while 39 percent listed al-Qaeda extremism as a threat. Only three percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism, according to The New York Times.

The Washington Post reported on June 25 that Democrats are frustrated that Johnson’s predecessor, Janet Napolitano, did not act on a 2009 report citing an alleged threat posed by so-called rightwing extremists.

The confidential DHS report was leaked to Infowars.com. Then House Speaker John Boehner characterized it “offensive and unacceptable.”

The letter issued by Democrats claims the Charleston attack and other violence would have been prevented if t he government had acted on the DHS report.

“There was so much political pushback that DHS repudiated the study and disbanded the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the unit responsible for the report. This lack of political will comes at a heavy price of repeated attacks on churches, temples and community centers for African American Christians, Sikh Americans and Jewish Americans,” Ellison and Grijalva write.

In August of 2014 the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a University of Maryland project funded by the Department of Homeland Security, designated the sovereign citizen movement as the number one domestic terrorist threat in America.

“The 2013-14 study results show that law enforcement’s top concern is sovereign citizens. Although Islamic extremists remain a major concern for law enforcement, they are no longer their top concern,” the START report states.

According to the organization, threats posed by sovereign citizens include cyberterrorism, the use of explosive devices, military weapons, and biological, chemical and radiological weapons.

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