But until Tuesday, when a driver identified by police as an Uzbek immigrant rammed a rented pickup truck into a bike lane in Lower Manhattan, killing eight and wounding 11 more, that tactic was rarely deployed in the United States by Islamic extremists.

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Why?

Experts say there are a number of factors at play.

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In general, terrorist attacks have been rarer in the United States than in Europe. Its borders are less porous, by geography and by design. Many observers believe immigrants tend to assimilate better in the United States than in Europe, where it can take generations to feel like you belong. “In France, you're a Frenchman if you're fifth generation, maybe,” longtime FBI veteran Jeffrey Ringel told to Vice. “But in America everybody's new, and everybody's different. It's easier to find more people like yourself so that you don't feel like you're left out, and therefore there's less alienation.”

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Ringel says the United States is also better able to share information about potential terror threats because all states are run under one federal system, unlike Europe.

Henry Wilkinson, director of intelligence analysis for the Risk Advisory Group, told Washington Post colleague that there's another reason, too: it's fairly easy to get guns in the United States, so firearms are often terrorists' weapon on choice. Most acts of terrorism on U.S. soil (including several domestic attacks) have involved firearms and explosives. In 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif. Twenty other people were injured. The couple had pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State online. In Orlando, Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub. A mass shooting at Ford Hood military base in 2009 killed 13.

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“If someone was inclined to go and carry out a terrorist attack, it seems more logical that one would use the effective way of carrying out that attack, and if given choice between using a car and a machine gun, you will probably use a machine gun,” Wilkinson said.

In Europe, gun laws are much tighter, and fewer fire arms are in circulation. (Even so, some of the continent's worst recent attacks, including the assault on the office of Charlie Hebdo and the attack on the Bataclan night club, were committed by terrorists using guns.)

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Turning a car into a weapon is not new — car bombs have been a popular weapon for years. But using vehicle-ramming as a weapon is a relatively new adaptation. Experts say it became popularized in the summer of 2008, when Palestinians used cars and bulldozers to kill and injure Israelis around Jerusalem. That same year, a Uighur militant group rammed a truck into a group of 70 Chinese police officers, killing 16.

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In 2010, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula brought the strategy to its followers in its online magazine Inspire. “Pick your location and timing carefully. Go for the most crowded locations,” the outlet said. “The ideal location is a place where there are a maximum number of pedestrians and the least number of vehicles.” A year later, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani stated: “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.”

Just a couple of years later, a spate of vehicular ramming attacks begin in Europe. In 2013, British army soldier Lee Rigby was run over by a car in London. Other similar attacks followed in the U.K., France, Germany and Spain.

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Of course, the tactic is not without precedent here. In 2006, Mohammed Taheri-azar plowed his Jeep into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world. Last year, a man inspired by the Islamic State drove into students at Ohio State University, then emerged with a knife. He went on to injure 11 people. Domestic terrorists have used the strategy too. In September, a right-wing extremist killed a woman in Charlottesville who was protesting a white nationalist rally.

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In 2017, the TSA issued a report on vehicle-ramming attacks, warning that “no community, large or small, rural or urban, is immune to attacks of this kind by organized or 'lone wolf' terrorists.” The agency cautioned that these kinds of attacks are simple to plan, but can induce mass casualties. It also warned car-rental companies to look out for suspicious behavior.

Some U.S. cities have already evolving to protect from this threat. The New York Stock Exchange is guarded by anti-vehicle ramps. The city has also been considering expanding its bollard program. Over on the Las Vegas strip, officials spent $5 million to install 700 bollards to keep vehicles out; authorities explained the expense as “a matter of life and death.” Each barrier is designed to resist a 15,000-pound, 30-foot vehicle, officials said. In Los Angeles, the police department is in the process of developing a plant to mitigate such attacks.

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