Terrorism?

The president's lone talking point is saying that there hasn't been a terrorist attack in America since 9/11 so they administration wants to make it clear this isn't a terrorist attack.

 

A good point that brings me to another question.

What if the purpose of terrorism is defiantly at odds with the reality.

Because I'm WAY more scared of those who are only interested in killing as many people as possible than those who are interested in scaring me for political gain.

 

Fenian, this terrorized, you bet your ass it did. Whether the shooter is dead or not, that campus is scarred for decades.

 

You don't think the kids that were shot were terrorized? What about the ones just wounded? What about the ones in the next room that just heard the shots and the screaming.

 

Who cares. Irrelevent.

 

I don't think Fenian is arguing that there was no affect of terror, but rather that terror wasn't the aim.

In other words, this guy was batshit crazy and wanted to kill as many people as he could. Any terror he caused was tertiary at best.

Whereas others -- the Columbine kids, for example -- wrote extensively about wanting to scare the people at their school. Terrorism was their purpose.

 

All due respect, but you're glib and wrong at the same time, and that's not a flattering combination.

 

It really doesn't matter if you want to classify this as terrorism or not. Neither subtracts nor adds to it.

 

So obviouly we should not have an intelligent discussion of whether this constitutes terrorism or not.

 

Agree to disagree.

 

I'll also agree to disagree with you, Zeke. Any time you're trying to kill folks, your aim is to terrorize them and others around them. It's like that dude at the Amish schoolhouse, shooting them all execution-style. If he merely wanted to kill 'em, he would've sprayed the place quickly. Sounds like this dude also planned this elaborately.

 

wicked --

I don't think any of us is really in disagreement yet, as much as we don't have enough evidence to render a decision.

And I suppose one could make the argument that death is the ultimate form of fear for a lot of people. Then the question at hand becomes what did the attacker intend for the affect to be on the living?