I HOPE THAT JESSE WALKER’S ANALYSIS REMAINS TRUE:

A few sporadic crimes, none of them inspiring a wave of copycats; a campaign whose body count over several years could be dwarfed by just one night of gang warfare; a would-be soldier who’s willing to slay one man then turn himself in—this isn’t a sequel to 9/11, it’s a short-lived spinoff that never made it past the pilot. These attacks are so rare, they if anything highlight how unwilling American Muslims are to kill for Allah. If this country were swimming with volunteer fifth-columnists, we would have seen a lot more mayhem by now.

It hardly matters whether isolated murderers are driven by their interpretation of the Koran, by some deficiency in their brains, or by any other explanation for their deeds. You can deal with them the way you deal with any other solitary criminals. There is real danger in an organized network of terrorists, and there is real danger in a substantial subculture willing to engage in unorganized terror. But attacks like the hit-and-run in North Carolina, the airport shootings in L.A., and this maybe-Muslim murder fit neither category. Bloody and evil as they are, their chief effect is to make jihad seem mundane.

At the moment, I think he’s probably right. And, as I’ve mentioned before, I think that it’s a good reason for the FBI not to be indiscriminate in its pursuit of potential terrorists in the United States, since that may do more harm than good.