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Time to Call Mass Shooters — and Those Who Inspire Them — Terrorists
In America, hate is all too often triggered by politicians who then sanctimoniously offer “thoughts and prayers” when random (or stochastic) terrorists to do their evil work for them
A terrorist attacked Club Q in Colorado Springs Saturday night. Another terrorist attacked WalMart workers in Virginia yesterday. It’s happened over 800 times this year.
But nobody’s calling them terrorists, and that’s a problem for America.
We didn’t call the jihadis who blew up the Twin Towers “mentally ill,” “disgruntled,” or discuss their “troubled past.” We correctly called them terrorists because they used mass murder to try to “right a wrong” or achieve a political goal, which is the literal definition of terrorism.
Osama bin Laden was nowhere in the vicinity of 9/11 — we later learned he didn’t even know the details of the operation that he had inspired with his words and those who amplified his rhetoric until it happened — yet President Barack Obama tracked him down and killed him. Bin Laden wasn’t mentally ill, either: he was a terrorist.
