Explaining Lone Wolf Target Selection in the United States

The rise in lone wolf terrorist attacks worldwide in recent decades makes understanding the types of targets lone wolves choose a crucial locus of research, yet this topic remains understudied. In light of this lacuna, this article analyzes 84 lone wolf terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States between 1940 and 2012, identifies patterns in lone wolf target selection, and proposes and tests causal explanations for these patterns. I find that (1) a majority of lone wolves select civilian targets in familiar areas and (2) this is due to their relative weakness and their ideology.