More Americans have been killed since Donald Trump took office by white American male citizens than by Muslim terrorists or foreigners.

The latest mass murder is one of the largest in US history. At the time of writing, 58 people (plus the killer) have been killed and 489 injured. The culprit was 64-year-old Stephan Paddock, an accountant from Nevada. His family said he was neither openly political nor religious.

Back in March, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim countries from crossing US borders. This was a response to radical Islamic terrorism; “we don’t want ’em here,” Trump told the press, as he signed the mandate.

“Only when the reality of American terrorism is confronted can the so-called ‘war’ be won”

The West undoubtedly faces a threat from ISIS-linked terrorism. The organisation claimed responsibility for the murder of 49 nightclub goers in Orlando, Florida in 2016. In the UK, we have suffered four ISIS-inspired attacks this year.

However, in the US the facts are now that between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown right-wing extremists than by Islamist terrorists.

If the Las Vegas shooting had been committed by a man with the name Mohammad or Abdul, the media would be calling it an act of terrorism. Instead, Stephen is called a “lone wolf”, a “psycho”, “demented”.

The Boston marathon bombers, who were later featured on the front page of Rolling Stone, identified as ethnic Chechen. They came to the US from Kyrgyzstan and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their attack left three dead and dozens injured.

The majority of Islamic terrorist acts in America are carried out by US nationals. Jennifer Williams at vox.com recently found out that “none of the perpetrators of the major US terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam in the past 15 years have come from the nations on Trump’s travel ban”.

Zach Beuchamp, also at vox.com, reported that even when the deaths on 9/11 are taken into account, the average likelihood of an American being killed in a terrorist attack perpetrated by an immigrant in any given year is one in 3.6 million. That’s less likely than being fatally shot by a toddler.

This week, many people on social media have argued the answer is stricter gun control. Twitter user Richard Bacon pointed out the number of Americans killed on battlefields in all wars in history is 1,396,733. This compares to the number killed by firearms in the US since 1968 is 1,516,863. This shocking fact is among many which describe America’s relationship with guns.

Regardless of the politics, the facts show that the current response to the threat of radical Islamic terrorism isn’t working. Only when the reality of American terrorism is confronted can the so-called “war” be won