{"id":2490363,"date":"2025-09-24T07:32:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bogus-adl-report-mislabels-leftist-violence-as-right-wing\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T07:38:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:38:30","slug":"bogus-adl-report-mislabels-leftist-violence-as-right-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bogus-adl-report-mislabels-leftist-violence-as-right-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"Bogus ADL Report Mislabels Leftist Violence As &#8216;Right-Wing&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbogus-adl-report-mislabels-leftist-violence-as-right-wing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2490363&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the debate over whether political violence in the United States is primarily committed by &#8220;right-wing extremists&#8221; or if <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-red-wave-of-conservative-women-elected-to-congress\/\" title=\"The Red Wave of Conservative Women Elected to Congress\">left-wing violence<\/a> is also significant. President Donald Trump recently stated that most political violence comes from the left, citing specific attacks. In contrast, the Anti-defamation leagues (ADL) annual report attributes all identified extremist-related murders from 2022 to 2024 to right-wing extremists, mainly white supremacists, who are said to have killed 61 people in that period. However,the article criticizes the ADL&#8217;s broad labeling of all racist murders as right-wing,pointing out cases like Payton Gendron (Buffalo shooter) and Anderson Lee Aldrich (Club Q shooter),whose ideologies and identities complicate simple right-wing classifications.<\/p>\n<p>The article also highlights left-wing mass shooters such as Audrey elizabeth Hale,Robert Crimo,Connor Sturgeon,and Kimbrady Carriker,who collectively committed 38 murders but are not counted by the ADL as ideologically motivated extremists. according to the Crime Prevention Research Center, about one-third of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-greg-steube-calls-out-democrats-red-flag-gun-grab\/\" title=\"Rep. Greg Steube Calls Out Democrat&#039;s Red Flag Gun Grab\">mass public shootings<\/a> from 2022 to 2024 are linked to the political left, challenging the narrative that only right-wingers engage in extremist violence.<\/p>\n<p>further criticism is directed at the ADL&#8217;s inclusion of non-political murders by groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and individuals with racist or antisemitic views,which are classified as right<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/liberals-rely-on-skewed-studies-to-claim-right-wing-violence\/\" title=\"Liberals rely on skewed studies to claim right... ...\">-wing extremist violence<\/a> despite lacking political motives. The article argues that if these ambiguous cases are excluded, violent acts attributed to left-wing and right-wing extremists are more balanced than reported. The media&#8217;s acceptance of the ADL&#8217;s selective definitions is seen as politically motivated rather than fact-based.<\/p>\n<p>John R. Lott Jr.,president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former U.S. Department of Justice advisor, is the author of the article.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Sunday, at the memorial for Charlie Kirk &mdash; murdered by a leftist because of his political views &mdash; President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/event\/white-house-event\/pres-trump-others-attend-memorial-service-for-late-charlie-kirk\/436577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">declared<\/a> &ldquo;that violence comes mainly from the left.&rdquo; And, on Friday, a <a href=\"https:\/\/wsbt.com\/news\/nation-world\/suspected-tv-station-shooter-posted-left-wing-themes-to-social-media?fbclid=IwY2xjawM-kGxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF1VGRGTHRMYnVqSmpvRnI1AR5EH_uPG1ymbKroMkrMotq0OWx9l3Phs8l93KBl02ldWK8NoJqPQQfUJ2pFzQ_aem_0ZpVSfj2gGDA8aCgv3X3xQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leftist fired shots<\/a> at the ABC station in Sacramento, California, in anger over Jimmy Kimmel&rsquo;s temporary suspension.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone agrees. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) countered with its latest annual report, <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Murder-and-Extremism-in-the-United-States-in-2024-ADL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claiming<\/a>, &ldquo;This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings.&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Murder-and-Extremism-in-the-United-States-in-2022-ADL-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">According<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Murder-and-Extremism-in-the-United-States-in-2023-ADL-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">to<\/a> the ADL, between 2022 and 2024, so-called &ldquo;right-wing extremists&rdquo; committed 34 extremist murders, with 23 of them (68 percent) carried out by white supremacists. They say those attacks took 61 lives.<\/p>\n<p>Claiming all the extremist murders are by &ldquo;right-wingers&rdquo; sounds dramatic, and the ADL report got extensive uncritical news coverage in media outlets including <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/amuse\/status\/1966181362232172932?s=42\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CNN<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/graphic-detail\/2025\/09\/12\/is-radical-left-violence-really-on-the-rise-in-america\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Economist<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-data-shows?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, those 61 deaths make up only a tiny fraction of the 58,781 murders the FBI recorded over the same three years. Still, as Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/event\/white-house-event\/pres-trump-others-attend-memorial-service-for-late-charlie-kirk\/436577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a>, a political murder is &ldquo;an attack on our entire nation.&rdquo; Yet, none of the cases listed by the ADL involve a right-winger murdering a political target.<\/p>\n<h2>Are these Murderers Really Right-Wing?<\/h2>\n<p>But serious questions remain about how the ADL defines &ldquo;right-wing extremists.&rdquo; Are all white supremacists really &ldquo;right-wing?&rdquo; Does every mass murderer who targets a gay bar automatically count as a &ldquo;right-winger?&rdquo; If you work at the ADL, the answer is apparently always &ldquo;yes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Take Payton Gendron, the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooter who murdered ten black shoppers. The ADL labeled him a right-wing extremist because he was racist. But his own writings complicate that story. Gendron hated black people because he thought they had too many children, which he believed harmed the environment. In his <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/2022\/05\/new-york-mass-public-shooter-explicitly-targeted-areas-where-ccw-are-outlawed-or-prohibited-may-be-good-areas-of-attack-areas-with-strict-gun-laws-are-also-great-places-of-attack\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">manifesto<\/a>, he called himself an &ldquo;eco-fascist national socialist&rdquo; and even described himself as a member of the &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/john-r-lott-jr-media-falsely-claim-mass-public-shooters-are-right-wingers-when-theyre-environmental-extremists\/\" title=\"John R. Lott, Jr.: Media Falsely Claim Mass Public ...s Are \u201cRight...ers\u201d When They\u2019re Environmental Extremists\">mild-moderate authoritarian left<\/a>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He raged against capitalists for &ldquo;destroying the environment.&rdquo; He blamed overpopulation, especially by blacks, for harming the environment: &ldquo;The invaders are the ones overpopulating the world. Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s not language most people associate with the political right.<\/p>\n<p>The same problem appears with Anderson Lee Aldrich, who murdered five people at Club Q, a gay bar in Colorado Springs, in 2022. The ADL classified him as a right-wing extremist because he targeted LGBT people. Yet Aldrich identified as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/colorado-springs-club-q-nonbinary-shooting-suspect-ran-neo-nazi-site-used-gay-slurs-online-police-testify\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">nonbinary and used they\/them pronouns<\/a> &mdash; facts the ADL left out of its framing. Those identifiers are hardly the hallmarks of right-wing ideology, especially when the ADL itself emphasizes the &ldquo;LGBTQ+&rdquo; nature of the venue.<\/p>\n<h2>Excluding Left-Leaning Murderers<\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, the ADL conveniently leaves other <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/2025\/01\/updated-information-on-mass-public-shootings-from-1998-to-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mass shooters<\/a> off its list entirely.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2022, transgender shooter&nbsp;Audrey Elizabeth Hale&nbsp;attacked the Nashville Covenant Catholic School in Tennessee and murdered six people. In her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2024\/02\/22\/nashville-transgender-shooter-left-wing-extremist-called-victims-faggots-adl-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">writings<\/a>, she raged against &ldquo;white privilege,&rdquo; vowed she wanted to &ldquo;kill all you little crackers,&rdquo; and resented the wealth of the students at the school. The <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Nashville-Covenant_Final_Summary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nashville Police report<\/a> also noted her support for gun control.<\/li>\n<li>Robert Crimo&nbsp;murdered seven people in Highland Park, Illinois, in 2022. He made no secret of his <a href=\"https:\/\/chicago.suntimes.com\/highland-park-parade-shooting\/2025\/03\/05\/highland-park-parade-shooting-robert-crimo-trial-waiver-donald-trump?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hostility toward Trump<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In 2023,&nbsp;Connor Sturgeon&nbsp;murdered five people in Louisville, Kentucky. He had previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2023\/apr\/11\/louisville-shooter-was-set-be-fired-bank-he-attack\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">praised the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and posted sharp criticism of police violence and Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>That same year,&nbsp;Kimbrady Carriker&nbsp;murdered five people in Philadelphia. Carriker <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/07\/04\/kimbrady-carriker-ided-as-philadelphia-gunman-accused-of-killing-5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">supported Black Lives Matter, wore women&rsquo;s clothes, and called for defunding the police<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These murderers committed a total of 38 murders. Yet the ADL claims that people on the left committed none. <\/p>\n<p>In fact, from 2022 to 2024, <a href=\"https:\/\/view.officeapps.live.com\/op\/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcrimeresearch.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F09%2FMass-Public-Shootings-in-the-US_1998%25E2%2580%2593August-2025_Race-Gender-Political-Affiliation-and-Religious-Affiliation.xlsx&amp;wdOrigin=BROWSELINK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">one-third<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/2025\/09\/update-the-false-narrative-of-white-supremacists-doing-mass-public-shootings-racial-gender-religious-and-political-views-of-these-killers-from-1998-through-august-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">18 mass public shooting cases<\/a> came from the political left. Eleven of the mass murderers during that period held no political views; they were <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >suicidal individuals seeking media attention<\/a>. One murderer &mdash; the Allen, Texas shooter in 2023 &mdash; identified as a neo-Nazi, and the ADL classifies this &ldquo;national socialist&rdquo; as a right-winger.<\/p>\n<h2>Not Political Murders<\/h2>\n<p>The ADL makes other questionable assumptions. Take the Aryan Brotherhood. The group is racist, but it has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/display\/10.1093\/acref\/9780191845611.001.0001\/acref-9780191845611-e-11?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">no political ideology beyond racism<\/a> and making money through racketeering, drug trafficking, and murder. None of the Aryan Brotherhood murders the ADL cites were politically motivated. Most involved disputes with other gang members, or in one case, the killing of a two-year-old girl the perpetrator had sexually assaulted, and in another, the murder of an 11-year-old girl living on the same property. Removing these cases cuts six murders from the ADL&rsquo;s tally.<\/p>\n<p>Three of the murderers were neo-Nazis, who murdered one person each. They are again classified as right-wingers based on them being racist even though they are &ldquo;national socialists.&rdquo; But again, none of these murders have anything to do with anyone&rsquo;s political views, with one murdering his aunt.<\/p>\n<p>Other cases are listed as right-wing because the perpetrators held antisemitic views. But given the recent anti-Israel riots, it isn&rsquo;t clear why those views automatically count as right-wing. One of the killers, tied to QAnon and anti-vaccine beliefs, murdered his wife. Another case involved a man who beat his five-year-old to death. Why do any of these killings qualify as a political murder?<\/p>\n<p>If we exclude the Payton Gendron and Anderson Lee Aldrich shootings, as well as the Aryan Brotherhood murders, but keep the neo-Nazis and other debatable cases, the numbers show about as many &ldquo;left-wing&rdquo; murderers as &ldquo;right-wing&rdquo; ones. The only reason the media&nbsp;treats the ADL&rsquo;s selective definitions and exclusions seriously is that they drive a political narrative unrelated to the truth.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John R. Lott Jr. is the president of the <a href=\"http:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/\">Crime Prevention Research Center<\/a>. He served as the senior advisor for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice during 2020-21.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump says left causes most violence; others disagree<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":2490364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/shooting-e1758583202846.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[12408,5129,50738,35049,10170],"class_list":["post-2490363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-adl","tag-left-wing","tag-misinformation-2","tag-political-violence","tag-right-wing"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/shooting-e1758583202846.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2490367,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490363\/revisions\/2490367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2490364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}