While the numbers show that terrorism is on the decline, Americans are still fearful that another terrorist attack like the one that took place on September 11th could happen again, even though other types of violence—such as gun violence by non-Muslims—has been on the rise. Between 2000 and 2013, the FBI reported there were 160 mass killings in the United States (U.S. Department of Justice 2013). In 2012, James Eagan Holmes went to a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and shot and killed seventeen people and injured seventy more. Later that year, Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school. These shootings have not resulted in public announcements about safety and security at malls, restaurants, movie theaters, or schools. Furthermore, policy shifts on mental health issues or gun control did not occur in haste in the aftermath of these shootings, and the mass shootings did not result in increased surveillance of individuals who buy and own guns. But Muslims who had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on September 11th found themselves under intense scrutiny by the state and their fellow citizens after the attacks.

XREF: Connects to broader discussions of racial/suspicion-based policing and whose violence is framed as terror.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 50