AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Rand Corporation terrorism and security expert, Brian Michael Jenkins told the New York Times Friday that facilities like the military recruiting center targeted by a 24-year-old gunman Thursday are deemed "soft targets," and are "no more protected than a shoe store in a shopping mall."
Jenkins says the people working there "are in uniform, but unarmed."
That vulnerability has led Oklahoma governor, Mary Fallin (R) to issue an executive order authorizing full-time military personnel to arm themselves at military facilities in the state, KOKH-TV reports.
"It is unfathomable that [unarmed Marines] should be vulnerable for attack in our own communities," Fallin said in a statement Friday.
FBI spokesman Ed Reinhold said the shooting in Chattanooga is being investigated "as an act of terrorism until we can confirm it is not."
AP Photo/Mark Zaleski
Not all of the attacks, however, were a result of homegrown extremism - but such motives have been on the rise, according to analysis from New America, a nonpartisan think tank.
In a July report, the organization found 313 individuals have been charged with jihadist extremism within the United States since 2001.