Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the College Fix on September 24, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission.
In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the professional think tank class pushed a startling claim—actually, it’s conservatives who are more violent!
Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh only counts murders and excludes the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which he labels as “Islamism,” not leftism. That might be fair to do, insofar as the single event would be an outlier that would account for 83 percent of all political murders.
But in only choosing murder, Nowrasteh discounts the criminal activity of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and pro-abortion groups that attacked pro-life groups in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
As any freshman political science major knows, the point of terrorism is not necessarily to kill as many people as possible, but to create as much fear, or terror, as possible.
An unnamed expert told Minding the Campus (MTC): “I think it’s a misunderstanding of terrorism to say that ‘most of the harm’ comes from death. Terrorism’s primary purpose is to cause widespread fear. Yes, that is usually caused by death, but it can also happen through unrest and property damage.”
Jared Gould, managing editor of MTC, added his own commentary, saying, “there have been so many instances of left-wing motivated unrest and property destruction that, even if they don’t prove the left commits more violence overall, such an adjustment to the methodology substantially narrows the gap.”
Oddly, conservatives might get a better picture from a left-leaning professor’s research than that of a libertarian researcher.
The Prosecution Project is run by University of Cincinnati Professor Michael Loadenthal. His research set includes violence from the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020.
He told the Fix via email, “we’ve maintained what I believe to be the largest open-source record of these crimes available–more than 1,700 cases.”
The research set is not perfect—it appears to label anti-Semitic violence as coming from the right, not the left, even though the political left is far more anti-Semitic.
There are other issues, as flagged by Ryan Girdusky, a political commentator. The project labels as right-violence murkier cases, including “Linda Mueller and two friends,” who “were arrested for peacefully protesting outside of an abortion clinic in West Chester, PA. It also includes, in Girdusky’s words, “Four men from Dover, New York, who robbed residents and targeted them based on their race, specifically looking to rob Mexicans. All four of the robbers were black.”
“Left-wing violence isn’t violence, while anyone can be considered rightwing violence, even if it isn’t right-wing or particularly violent,” he wrote, summarizing the logic employed by the Prosecution Project.
[RELATED: Advocating Violence Is Permissible—If You’re a Campus Leftist]
Still, the Project is forthcoming in their dataset, making it easily available for scrutiny. Loadenthal also said some high-profile incidents are not included because the criminal cases are still pending. That includes Nicholas Roske, who allegedly attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Ryan Routh, who is being prosecuted for allegedly shooting at the president Trump in Florida.
“Roske’s Case ID is 06152022_NJR, and Routh’s is 09242024_RWR. Both cases are “under the ‘in progress’ tab,” Loadenthal told the Fix. He said researchers need to wait for the cases to be completed and for a sentence, if any, to be rendered.
Some have accused Loadenthal of having anarchist and Antifa sympathies, based on his comments and activism. “My work has focused on the study of political violence and social movements for decades. I have frequently written about both anarchists and anti-fascists,” he told the Fix in response to a question about the accusations. “These movements were the subject of my Master’s thesis, my PhD dissertation, and my first book. All of these publications have been peer reviewed by panels of subject matter experts and publishers.”
While the biases of researchers can be worth noting, the actual methods used are what ultimately matter. A good study will be forthcoming with its dataset and explain the decisions made. No matter what study is being referenced, people should always dive deeper into the details before coming to a judgment about its reliability and applicability.
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Image: “Black Lives Matter Protest, Seattle WA” by Kelly Kline on Flickr
“Ryan Routh, who is being prosecuted for allegedly shooting at the president Trump in Florida.” — The jury just found him guilty, although technically he isn’t convicted until his opportunity to appeal is exhausted.
“The research set is not perfect—it appears to label anti-Semitic violence as coming from the right, not the left, even though the political left is far more anti-Semitic.”
IS there any actual anti-Semetic violence (i.e. damage to persons or property) on the right? There are some on the right who *say* some pretty vile things, but in the past 50 years, has there been any actual harm to persons or property, or even any actual (realistic) threats of such?
Saying “I hate Jews” (or “I hate Trump”) is nasty, but not violence. Causing people to bleed and things to burn IS violence. I’m not the brightest bulb, but I can’t think of any in my lifetime — violence against Jews is coming from the LEFT…
And globally, for all the talk of Nazism, it is France, not Germany, where synagogues are burning…