Attacks stoke debate over need for domestic terrorism laws in US

TULSA, OKLAHOMA — Attacks this summer on counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, and an empty Air Force recruiting station in Oklahoma had the hallmarks of terrorist attacks but weren't prosecuted as such.

Even though many in law enforcement referred to them as acts of domestic terrorism, there is a simple reason such charges weren't brought: They don't exist.

U.S. law defines a terrorist as having ties to a foreign entity, such as the Islamic State or other known terror groups. Homegrown extremist groups such as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan aren't labeled that way, even if they employ similar tactics of violence and intimidation.

The government generally prosecutes these cases under other charges, such as murder. But several recent attacks, including a deadly one on a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, have stoked debate about whether there should be domestic terrorism laws.

FBI Director Chris Wray pointed out while testifying before Congress last week that even when convicted under nonterrorism charges, domestic terrorists can face the same punishment — including death — as those convicted under international terrorism statutes.

"There may be reasons why it's simpler, easier, quicker, less resourceintensive and you can still get a long sentence with some of the other offenses," Wray said. "And so, even though you may not see them, from your end, as a domestic terrorism charge, they are very much domestic terrorism cases that are just being brought under other criminal offenses."

Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, in what was then the worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil. He was convicted in federal court of using a weapon of mass destruction and of murder for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers who died in the blast, which killed a total of 168 people. McVeigh was executed in 2001.