Last week’s shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas has confirmed the opinion among many Americans that we’re riding a wave of politically motivated violence that became a national focus of attention after the callous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Politicians on both sides of the aisle condemn the violence and urge Americans to tone down the political rhetoric and polarization after his killing, with the notable exceptions of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and some of their key advisors.

The only problem is that we’re not suffering through an epidemic of political violence. Exhortations to reduce violence and polarization are wise and noble. Kirk’s assassination and the shooting in Texas are vile crimes. The victims deserve justice. But we’re not on the cusp of a society-wide bloodletting. How do I know? I built a widely shared data collection of politically motivated terrorist attacks that was constructed from about 20 sources.

The other common term for politically motivated killing by a non-state actor is terrorism. My data focus on those murdered in attacks, which is the best measure. Over the last five years, from January 2021 to the present, only 78 people have been killed in politically motivated terrorist attacks. Islamist terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar was the deadliest, murdering 14 people in a ramming attack in New Orleans. A few other terrorists had a hodgepodge of beliefs while the remaining 60 victims were murdered by right-wing and left-wing terrorists, roughly two-thirds by right-wingers.

The number of people murdered in politically motivated killings is below the previous five-year period of 2016 to 2020. The deadliest then was the Islamist Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 at the Pulse Nightclub in Florida, followed by Patrick Crusius, who left behind a right-wing manifesto that justified his mass shooting that claimed 23 lives in El Paso. Seventy-two of those victims were murdered by right- and left-wing terrorists, right-wingers being responsible for just over 70 percent of those killings.

This is not a tidal wave of political violence, it’s a ripple.

The five-year period of 2001 to 2005 was the worst because of the 9/11 attacks, the deadliest politically motivated terrorist attack in world history. But 9/11 dominates the numbers to such an extent that it often makes sense to look elsewhere to understand the landscape of non-state political violence. Excluding that devastating attack from the analysis, the five years from 1991 to 1995 were the deadliest, with 187 murder victims.

Of those, 176 were committed by right-wing terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and his coconspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing and other, less well-known killers. Islamists murdered 10 in terrorist attacks. Left-wing terrorists didn’t murder anyone during that period.

The low level of politically motivated murder is surprising because the inputs to violence have never been cheaper. The U.S. population is the highest it’s ever been. There are more mentally ill people than ever before. The amount of crazy rhetoric in politics and media is off-the-charts. Weapons have never been more available to more people. The internet eases planning attacks. The police seem less capable now than in the past because they’re solving fewer crimes. The historically high immigrant population was supposed to result in more terrorism, but it hasn’t.

The numbers are so small that the demand for political violence exceeds the supply. When mass shooter Shane Tamura incidentally murdered a Blackstone executive in a mass shooting, some depraved online commentators celebrated the murder of a business executive, even though she was not the target. Some members of the public demand more politically motivated violence than murderers were willing to supply.

What can we conclude when committed politically motivated killers have never had it easier, and the numbers are so low? Perhaps we’re one destabilizing killing away from calamity if a major political figure were assassinated, as happened in the 1960s. More likely, we’re overreacting.

The political reaction to this minor threat is the greatest danger. Political retribution promised by Stephen Miller and JD Vance, President Trump’s administration’s threats against broadcasters, and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s warnings against hate speech will hurt far more people. After 9/11, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, we got a domestic surveillance system, and started many foreign wars in a tectonic overreaction.

There just aren’t many people killed in politically motivated attacks. The victims deserve justice and politicians should condemn it, but fealty to the truth requires us to admit that it isn’t a big problem that requires massive new government interventions. We need to learn from the post‑9/​11 overreaction and realize that the larger hazard is how the government could respond.