The recent shootings in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., have sparked a wave of discussion about “lone-wolf terrorism” in America. But even before those incidents, the federal government in 2009 announced the Lone Wolf Initiative, in response to what national-security experts see as a growing threat to our safety. Maybe it’s time for the American people to continue to pay attention after the headlines fade.

Although the number of lone-wolf attacks has spiked in recent years, spectacular terrorist assaults, like those on September 11, 2001, seem to have gone down. After 9/11 the United Sates erected an enormous homeland-security apparatus. Sharing intelligence with other nations has foiled a number of terrorist plots; so has an effort to overcome the American tradition of federalism and to coordinate federal, state, and local law-enforcement…

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