Talk:Lone wolf attack

Vehicular

I'm from Denmark, where the term "lone wolf" is also used in Danish, as a direct untranslated loan from English. It usually refers to perpetrators of attacks, usually attacks also described as terrorism, who act without direct contact with or incitement from other individuals or organizations, but often inspired by extremist religious and/or political entities or movements, often claiming to sympathize with or act on behalf of such entities, and sometimes subsequently endorsed by them.

However, the means of the attack - the weapons used - seem irrelevant for this use of the word. In multiple cases in Europe, and apparently in one recent case in USA, the weapon has been a car or truck. From my (Danish) perspective, it makes little sense to specify in a definition of the concept which weapons are used - it would make more sense to say e.g. "using weapons such as ...", and also to explicitly include vehicular attacks.

Also, limiting the concept to attacks where at leas 4 are dead seems irrelevant. E.g., a failed attack with 0 dead could be a lone wolf attack - though it is of course not a mass murder.

Would this contradict available sources, or current usage in English? Nø (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, I now added vehicle-ramming attack to lead. As the sentence was structured, I had to add vehicular attacks either to US or to elsewhere; it really seems to be relevant to both, considering the US vehicular attacks 2006 UNC SUV attack, 2014 Isla Vista killings, Charlottesville car attack, 2017 New York City truck attack, Waukesha Christmas parade attack and 2025 New Orleans truck attack. (All or most of these seem to be properly described as a "lone wolf" attacks.) The distinction made between firearms being used in USA, and knives often being used elsewhere, is to some extent true, but possibly too specific to belong in the lead.

Also, I still think there is a confusion or ambiguity about required number of victims. A lone wolf attack may be a mass murder, and that requires a number of dead, but I don't see why an attack with many injured and no (or few) dead couldn't be described as a lone wolf attack, and also, a failed attack is still an attack (I believe), so it seems a failed attack carried out by a lone wolf would also be a "lone wolf attack". Nø (talk) 13:44, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Definition is OR

I don't think the definition this page uses, constructing a kind of non-terror "lone wolf actor" is actually used outside of wikipedia. I am fairly certain "lone actor/lone wolf" concept is here exclusive to terrorism. None of the articles I am seeing cited here or elsewhere actually give it the secondary definition we apply to it. The motive/casualties/whatsoever are a strange distraction because these are not what the sources talk about or use in defining what is a lone actor case. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:27, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I have removed a large chunk of this page that was OR or did not verify. This was on off topic concepts - not all lone actor terrorism is mass murder, method is not relevant for qualification for one. Several sources did not use lone actor, lone wolf, whatsoever! Many more did not say what we were citing them for. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:42, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 14 February 2025

Lone wolf attack → Lone wolf terrorism – Lone actor terrorism is the more academic term but lone wolf is more popular in vernacular, pick your poison (Lone wolf terrorism is also an acceptable option) actually Lone wolf terrorism is more common in RS so i have changed it to that. The important bit is the "terrorism". This article was moved from Lone wolf (terrorism) without a RM, which admittedly is a bad way to structure the title, because the contents of the page covered non-terror attacks. The problem is, this whole definition was OR and made up seemingly whole cloth, that I have now removed. The lone actor/lone wolf concept is exclusive to terrorism, that is the entire distinction. Mass murder has nothing to do with the definition of this, many lone wolf terror attacks are not mass murder. None of the sources we were using to support an assertion of non-terror lone wolf actions being an accepted category say so, many didn't mention lone wolves at all, they were just sources about mass shootings and mass murder which were used incorrectly to conflate it with this concept without even using the words lone wolf, lone actor, or any equivalent term etc. This is the common name for the actual sources that talk about it and not an OR-mess of completely different things, and in fact several sources actively distinguish and compare them. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:46, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support per rationale of PARAKANYAA. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 14:28, 16 February 2025 (UTC)