CINCINNATI — Christopher Lee Cornell showed little direction in his life, spending hours playing video games in his bedroom in his parents’ apartment, rarely going out or working, and voicing distrust of the government and the media. But in recent weeks, his parents say, they noticed a change in him.

They thought it was a change for the better: The 20-year-old suburban Cincinnati man was helping his mother around the house, cooking meals, sitting with his parents to watch movies, and talking about having become a Muslim.

“He said, ‘I’m at peace with myself,”’ his father, John Cornell, recalled Thursday — a day after his son was arrested in an FBI sting and charged with plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol with pipe bombs and guns and kill government officials.

The arrest came with U.S. counterterrorism authorities on high alert against homegrown extremists and “lone wolves” — disaffected or disturbed individuals who hold radical beliefs but have no direct connection to a terrorist organization.

The bearded, long-haired Cornell was taken into custody outside a gun range and store west of Cincinnati after, the FBI said, he bought two M-15 semi-automatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition as part of a plan to go to Washington.