Fact check: What are the sources of the 76% statistic on right-wing violence?

1. How the 76% Number Emerged — a Convergence, Not a Citation

The best available recent accounts describe the 76% number as a consensus estimate arrived at by comparing several datasets and government summaries rather than one definitive study. Articles in The Conversation and republished summaries in September 2025 report that analysts compared FBI and Department of Homeland Security definitions of domestic violent extremism with academic databases such as the Global Terrorism Database and research projects tracking extremist incidents, and concluded right‑wing actors account for roughly three‑quarters of domestic‑terrorism fatalities since 2001 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. This process of triangulation explains why different writeups give a 75–80% range.

2. Which Datasets Are Being Triangulated — and Why They Differ

The sources commonly invoked include federal data on domestic violent extremism (FBI/DHS), the Global Terrorism Database, and university‑led event trackers; summaries note the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project as another dataset that may code events differently ^{[1] [3]}. Each dataset applies distinct definitions and inclusion rules—what qualifies as “domestic terrorism,” whether ideological motive is inferred, timeframes, and coding of perpetrator ideology—so discrepancies among them are expected. The 76% figure reflects cross‑dataset agreement on outcomes (fatalities) more than uniform agreement on every coded incident.

3. Recent Syntheses That Repeat the 75–80% Range

Contemporaneous reporting in mid‑September 2025 reiterated the 75–80% range for right‑wing attribution of domestic‑terrorism fatalities: The Conversation’s September 17, 2025 piece explicitly states this band and attributes it to “[g]overnment and independent analyses” using the aforementioned datasets ^[1]. Republished and summarized versions on September 18, 2025 echo the same findings and emphasize that while coding decisions vary, the dominant share of fatalities from domestic terrorism in the U.S. consistently traces to right‑wing actors across these analyses ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Alternative Coverage and Specific Event Counts

Other reporting in the same period conveys similar conclusions while using different incident windows and analyses; for example, a TIME Magazine piece referenced research showing right‑wing perpetrators accounted for over half of 81 political‑violence murders in a recent five‑year window, and left‑wing actors for around 22%—illustrating variation by timeframe but supporting the same directional claim that the right accounts for more fatalities overall ^[4]. These shorter‑window, event‑level tallies can differ from the long‑run 2001–present aggregates but do not negate the broader pattern reported by the September 2025 syntheses ^[1].

5. What Supporters and Skeptics Emphasize

Proponents of the 76% framing highlight that multiple independent and governmental sources converge on a pronounced right‑wing share of fatal domestic‑terrorism outcomes, making the estimate robust to definitional differences ^{[1] [2]}. Skeptics point out the important methodological caveats: dataset inclusion rules, the challenge of coding motive post‑incident, and how short windows or selective event choices can yield different percentages. The reporting acknowledges these limits while maintaining that aggregated fatality counts consistently show a large right‑wing share ^{[3] [2]}.

6. What Is Often Omitted but Matters for Interpretation

Summaries citing the 75–80% range often omit granular methodological transparency: specific incident lists, coding decisions, and sensitivity checks across datasets are not always published in popular summaries ^{[1] [3]}. Omitted details matter because whether an incident is counted as “domestic terrorism” or assigned an ideological label can shift percentages, especially for smaller sample sizes or short multi‑year windows. The long‑term fatality aggregates reduce some noise, but missing methodological appendices limit precise attribution to a single 76% figure ^[2].

7. Bottom Line for Someone Quoting “76%” Today

Quoting “76%” as a shorthand portrait of recent scholarly and government analyses is defensible if framed as an approximate, aggregated estimate from several datasets showing that roughly three‑quarters of U.S. domestic‑terrorism fatalities since 2001 are attributed to right‑wing actors. Cite the triangulation explicitly and prefer the 75–80% range to avoid implying a single definitive source; readers should be informed of the definitional caveats and variation across time windows and coding approaches documented in the September 2025 syntheses ^{[1] [2] [3]}.