Dallas ICE and the Long Arc of American Political Violence

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

On September 24, 2025, rifle shots cracked from a rooftop in Dallas. Below, detainees were being moved at an ICE facility. One man was killed, two critically wounded. Later, investigators found an unused bullet etched with the words “ANTI-ICE.”(1) The symbolism was unmistakable: this was not random violence but an assault on a federal institution, chosen precisely because it embodies the United States’ contested immigration enforcement system.

Americans are not new to such moments. The country has experienced waves of political violence before—sometimes aimed at presidents, sometimes at government buildings, sometimes at the police who embody state power. To understand Dallas, and to grasp what may come next, we have to trace the stories of the people who pulled triggers or lit fuses, the passions that moved them, and the way their actions reverberated across the republic.

From Riots and Anarchists to the Death of a President

The first great post–Civil War wave came in Reconstruction, when white mobs in Memphis and New Orleans (1866) attacked freedmen and federal soldiers. The perpetrators were not lone madmen but communities determined to reverse emancipation. These massacres were political messages: Washington’s power over the South would be resisted with blood.(2)

By the 1880s, a different current surged in American cities: anarchism. The Haymarket bombing of 1886 began as a peaceful labor rally, but someone hurled dynamite at the police, killing seven. The message was revolutionary: capitalist order itself was illegitimate. Fifteen years later, Leon Czolgosz, a lonely Ohio drifter enthralled by anarchist tracts, shot President William McKinley at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition. Czolgosz declared himself an agent of the oppressed. He was executed in the electric chair within weeks, but his act imprinted the vulnerability of even the nation’s highest office.(3)

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, the shooter was not an anarchist but another alienated drifter, Lee Harvey Oswald. A Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and returned disillusioned, Oswald seethed at America’s capitalism and Cuba policy. With a $20 rifle and a perch in a book depository, he ended the life of the most charismatic leader of his age. Kennedy’s death traumatized the nation, hardened Secret Service doctrine, and proved that in America, politics could be rewritten in seconds by a man with a gun.(4)

The 1960s–70s: Assassins and Militants

The decade that followed brought more killings. Malcolm X was gunned down by rivals in 1965, his militancy turned against him. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot by James Earl Ray in 1968, an act of white supremacist vengeance against the dream of racial equality. Two months later, Robert F. Kennedy fell to Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian enraged by Kennedy’s support for Israel.

Meanwhile, groups like the Weather Underground turned to bombings. Their leaders—Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers—were children of affluence, convinced that America’s war in Vietnam and its treatment of Black citizens justified sabotage. They issued communiqués, set off bombs at the Capitol and Pentagon, and fled underground. Their goal was to awaken conscience through shock. Instead, they hardened the FBI’s resolve. COINTELPRO infiltrated, surveilled, and broke their networks until, by the 1980s, their dream of revolution had withered.(5)

Oklahoma City, 1995: The Archetype of Anti-Federal Terror

Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, fit a different mold. Quiet, intense, obsessed with gun rights and anti-government literature, he seethed over the FBI’s raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco. With accomplice Terry Nichols, McVeigh built a truck bomb and parked it outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, the blast killed 168 people, including 19 children in a day-care center.(6)

McVeigh was arrested within hours and executed six years later. He never repented. In his mind, he was a soldier striking back at tyranny. America responded with steel bollards, security perimeters, and new terrorism laws. But his ideology—the conviction that the federal government is the enemy—did not die with him. It migrated online, where it still lives.

Outside Terrorist Attacks: 9/11

While not the first attack, America witnessed the deadliest terrorist attack in its history on the morning of September 11, 2001. Nineteen al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes, crashing two into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. Unlike earlier lone-wolf or domestic attacks, 9/11 was orchestrated abroad but executed on American soil, designed to strike the nation’s symbols of commerce, military power, and political resolve. Its impact reshaped American life: the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, sweeping surveillance through the Patriot Act, and a new culture of airport and border security. If Oklahoma City was the archetype of anti-federal domestic terror, 9/11 was the archetype of global jihad striking America’s core—and its shadow still hangs over every subsequent conversation about political violence, foreign or domestic.

Sacred Spaces and Schools Under Fire

In the years after Oklahoma City and 9/11, another pattern scarred the American landscape: the rise of mass shootings in schools and churches. Columbine High School in 1999, where two students killed thirteen classmates and teachers, marked a generational turning point. It was followed by Virginia Tech in 2007, Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, and Uvalde in 2022, where a gunman slaughtered nineteen children and two teachers while police hesitated outside. Churches, too, became sanctuaries violated: the 2015 Charleston massacre, where a white supremacist gunned down nine Black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church, and the 2017 Sutherland Springs shooting in Texas, where 26 were murdered during Sunday service. More recently, in March 2023, a former student entered the Covenant School, a private Catholic elementary school in Nashville, and killed three children and three staff members.

These attacks were not always tied to partisan politics, but they carried symbolic weight—assaults on the most sacred spaces of American life: classrooms and sanctuaries. Over time, their repetition dulled shock into grim expectation, setting the stage for a culture in which violence at symbolic sites—whether a school, a church, or an ICE facility—feels chillingly imaginable.

The New Century: Lone Wolves and Symbolic Targets

Back to governmental attacks, the 21st century brought more “lone wolves” animated by grievance:

  • Andrew Joseph Stack (2010): A frustrated software engineer who railed against taxes, he loaded his Piper Dakota with fuel and crashed it into an IRS office in Austin. He left behind a manifesto comparing the IRS to tyranny.(7)
  • Willem Van Spronsen (2019): A Seattle anarchist, convinced ICE camps were “concentration camps,” attacked the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center with Molotov cocktails. He was killed by police at the gates.(8)
  • Micah Johnson (2016): An Army veteran who believed police were waging war on Black men, he ambushed officers during a Dallas protest, killing five before police robots killed him with an explosive charge—the first such use in U.S. policing.(9)

Each of these men was not simply disturbed; each saw himself as acting in history’s name.

2020s: Leaders in the Crosshairs

The last half-decade has added another dimension: direct attacks on political leaders.

  • Donald Trump (Butler, PA, July 2024): A gunman opened fire from a rooftop, grazing Trump’s ear and killing a rally attendee. Secret Service admitted grave security lapses, prompting major reforms.(10)
  • Donald Trump (West Palm Beach golf course, July 2025): Less than a year later, another assailant tried to target Trump during a morning round of golf. Secret Service agents spotted him early and neutralized the threat. That near-miss underscored the constant danger stalking political figures, even in seemingly private leisure spaces.
  • Charlie Kirk (Utah Valley University, Sept 2025): A rising conservative voice, founder of Turning Point USA, Kirk was shot by a leftist gunman while addressing students. To admirers, he became an instant martyr, canonized in eulogies from President Trump down to college students who saw him as a mentor.(11)
  • Dallas ICE (Sept 2025): Just two weeks later, the state itself—through ICE—was attacked. The shooter’s bullet, engraved “ANTI-ICE,” left no doubt of his motive.(1)

This sequence shows how the personal and the institutional now intersect. Leaders are hunted as symbols. Federal agencies are attacked as proxies. The violence is no longer episodic; it is converging.

International Parallels

Other democracies show how this can evolve:

  • Italy’s Years of Lead (1970s–80s): Leftist Red Brigades kidnapped and killed former prime minister Aldo Moro. Right-wing cells bombed train stations. Violence became chronic until prosecutions and public disgust finally choked it out.
  • Germany’s RAF (Baader–Meinhof): A clique of intellectual radicals waged kidnappings and killings until the state ground them down and their own political allies turned away.
  • Northern Ireland Troubles: Decades of tit-for-tat bombings and assassinations show how cycles become generational unless political settlement interrupts them.

The warning for America is stark: if partisans come to view violence as normal, the republic risks entering a long twilight of chronic bloodshed.

Are We at the Peak?

The evidence says no. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that incidents tied to demonstrations surged from just 2% of domestic terror cases in 2019 to over half in 2021.(12) The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which tracks political violence worldwide, counted 22,900 political violence and protest events in the United States during 2020 alone.(13) The START Global Terrorism Database shows that while most terror in America since 1970 has been non-lethal, the rare deadly outliers—Oklahoma City and 9/11—reshaped the country.(14) Analysts now warn that with ICE facilities under fire and leaders like Kirk and Trump directly targeted, America has entered a “higher baseline” of risk.(15)

How These Waves End—or Don’t

History offers clues, but never guarantees.

Institutions harden.
After JFK was killed in Dallas, the Secret Service transformed presidential protection—no more slow convertible rides through open plazas. After Oklahoma City, federal buildings sprouted concrete barriers and stand-off distances. After Butler in 2024, counter-sniper doctrine was rewritten, and at West Palm Beach in 2025, those new protocols likely prevented Trump’s death. Every major attack leaves its mark on architecture, police posture, and the way Americans gather. Institutions do not collapse under pressure—they become fortresses. But that very hardening makes civic life colder, less open, and more fearful.(4)(6)(10)

Accountability deters—but only when applied evenly.
McVeigh was executed. James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, and Czolgosz all faced trial or death. These punishments carried symbolic weight: violence against the state would not succeed. But when justice is politicized, the deterrent falters. The blanket pardons for Jan. 6 rioters sent the opposite signal: violence on behalf of one side may be excused. That lesson, if internalized, can make the next would-be attacker more confident, not less.(16)

In-group leaders must denounce their own.
The Weather Underground’s wave in the 1970s collapsed not only because of FBI infiltration, but because fellow progressives disavowed them. When radicals lose legitimacy among their own base, recruitment withers. The same principle applies today. When Kirk’s killer—a leftist motivated by hatred of MAGA politics—fired at a conservative speaker, progressive leaders had a chance to respond not just with condolences but with a clear, “This is not who we are.” Likewise, when MAGA figures denounce their own extremists, they rob would-be killers of a sense of validation. But silence—or worse, winks—keeps the permission structure alive.(5)

Waves taper when mobilization ebbs.
Violence feeds on mass gatherings. CSIS data shows that in 2019, only 2% of domestic terror incidents were linked to demonstrations; by 2021, more than half were.(12) That spike corresponded with nationwide protests over policing, COVID, and elections. When the streets are quieter, violence tends to subside. When protests swell, extremists see opportunities. The danger after Dallas and Kirk is that tit-for-tat attacks could turn every rally into a potential battlefield, ensuring the mobilization never fully ebbs.

But sometimes, waves don’t end at all—they mutate.
The assassination of Kirk by a leftist could become a rallying cry for retaliation. If even one MAGA-aligned actor were to storm a progressive rally, claiming vengeance for Kirk, the spiral would deepen. That is precisely how Italy’s “Years of Lead” sustained itself: each side claimed its bomb was “revenge” for the other’s. If Americans accept that logic, then Dallas ICE and Kirk’s murder may not be the crest of a wave but the opening of a cycle.

Futures: Suppression, Normalization, or Escalation

1. Suppression Cycle (best-case)

America has lived this before. After the Weather Underground bombings, prosecutions and disavowals pushed violence to the margins. In this future, the Dallas shooter is tried, Kirk’s killer sentenced, Trump’s assailants locked away—all without partisan shielding. Both parties tell their followers: “Violence dishonors our cause.” Institutions harden, but civic life continues. Within a few years, the fever breaks.

2. Normalization Cycle (middle-case)

This is the darker road America already knows. School shootings, once shocking, are now routine. Imagine the same for political violence: another ICE ambush, another rally shooting, another would-be assassin at a golf course, each shocking for a news cycle but soon absorbed. Civic life survives, but scarred; leaders speak behind barriers, federal buildings become fortresses, the public grows numb.

3. Escalation Cycle (worst-case)

The nightmare path looks like Italy’s Years of Lead. A MAGA gunman storms a progressive rally, claiming vengeance for Kirk. A leftist retaliates against a conservative conference. Demonstrations turn into running street battles. Trust in elections collapses. Violence becomes not exception but expectation. In this world, Dallas ICE is remembered not as a tragedy but as a beginning.

Conclusion

Dallas ICE is part of a story as old as the Reconstruction mobs and as recent as a sniper’s bullet grazing a former president on a Pennsylvania stage. From JFK to Kirk, from Oklahoma City to West Palm Beach, America’s political violence has always been about symbols: presidents, agencies, grievances, ideologies.

Whether this wave fades or escalates depends not just on perimeters and body armor but on something deeper: whether Americans will find the courage to hold their own accountable, to say “not in our name,” and to rebuild the civic trust that makes violence unnecessary.

Footnotes

  1. Reuters, Gunman wrote ‘ANTI-ICE’ on unused bullet in Dallas ICE attack, Sept 24, 2025【turn0news71†source】.
  2. Wikipedia, Memphis Massacre of 1866【turn0search3†source】.
  3. Wikipedia, Assassination of William McKinley【turn3search1†source】.
  4. National Archives, Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
  5. Cambridge University Press, American Political Violence and COINTELPRO【turn3news26†source】.
  6. FBI & DOJ, Oklahoma City Bombing Case Files【turn0search3†source】.
  7. New York Times, Pilot’s Suicide Attack on IRS Office, 2010【turn0search5†source】.
  8. BBC, Tacoma ICE Attack, 2019【turn0search4†source】.
  9. CNN, Dallas Police Ambush, 2016【turn0search6†source】.
  10. DHS Review, Butler Rally Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump, 2024【turn1search3†source】.
  11. AP, Charlie Kirk killed in Utah, Sept 2025【turn1search6†source】.
  12. CSIS, Domestic Terrorism in the U.S.: Demonstration-linked incidents 2019–2021【turn2search6†source】.
  13. ACLED, US Crisis Monitor 2020【turn2search1†source】.
  14. START, Global Terrorism Database, 1970–2019【turn3search1†source】.
  15. CSIS, U.S. Political Violence Trends, 2024【turn2search0†source】.
  16. Politico, Mass Pardons of Jan 6 Defendants, 2025【turn1search0†source】.

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