Darn, I was just planning on a quick lurk tonight due to shortness of time, but that has to be answered. I watched some of the live coverage on Fox last night and the refefinition of terrorism made me hopping mad.
I have been studying terrorism, foreign and domestic, for 30 years. The Austin planer was not a terrorist. He did not belong to an organization, there was no organization - in fact, he showed the classic disorganized thought patterns of a serial killer - and there was no PLAN to use fear to force the public and the government to institute the changes you demand.
The act was not terrorism, it was a lone psychotic, which typically attack the Fed during tax time. If we insist on DEFINING it as an act of terrorism, we then must define the NIU shooter as a terrorist rather then a nut with a similar behavioral pattern.
I understand your concern, but hope you will understand why we have to be very careful of our definitions. If we blur the definition, then everything is an act of terrorism, thus legally turning an act of terrorism into...nothing, a misdemeanor.
The el Al shooter in LA was a terrorist, the kid who professed to admire bin Laden and stole a plane and rammed it into a building was committing an act of terror, but this guy? The air is cleaner without him breathing it. Thank God he didn't do more damage
We now return to our regularly scheduled thread.
HE called his act one of VIOLENCE.
Charles Bishop called his act “terrorist” in his suicide note. It was later scratched out but since the authorities denied it was intentional in the first place, I'll hold some skepticism that Charles Bishop/Bishra was the one to scratch it out seeing as it was in the first sentence of a two page letter.