Well, we should no more draw conclusions from that than we should if the bomber had been a black female, or a trans Hispanic, or, well, whatever. At this point, he’s just a corpse we suspect of having done stuff when, um, not a corpse.
I’m happy that the threat is gone, but really interested in hearing what the motivations were.
Well we know 100% sure that he wasn’t a terrorist - whew, what a relief!
Authorities are warning there could still be more bombs out there.
Because we have to pick a cause for this, I’m going to go with the home-schooling as the reason for him blowing shit up.
/s
I don’t see any sort of Trump condemnation or anything in the way of talking heads from either party in the news condemning this terrorist. Is it because he was white and conservative?
Ding ding.
Edit: according to the White House, he was for sure, 100% not a terrorist.
Wet just have to learn to understand how his economic anxiety drove him to it.
You could say the same about all the school shootings. Why aren’t they being called acts of terrorism? Because they target minors? Because the shooters are White?
“Terrorism” is and always has been a political designation. In today’s USA, “terrorism” refers pretty much only to actions taken by non-whites for political goals that the GOP doesn’t agree with.
Everything else is just “unfortunate.”
I seriously don’t get how someone who is inspiring terror, literally by blowing people up with bombs, is “not linked to terrorism”.
He’s literally a terrorist.
Intent.
Shocking.
It’s funny how whenever one of these things happens, there’s one group of people hoping it’s a Muslim and another hoping it’s a Christian. But maybe don’t cream yourselves just yet.
“He does not at all mention anything about terrorism, nor does he mention anything about hate, but instead it is the outcry of a very challenged young man, talking about challenges in his personal life,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters.
If he fits the crazy white loner stereotype but wasn’t motivated by racism, do you guys consider that to be a partial victory for your team?
By the definition there needs to be a political objective behind it. Like if you drive a truck into a farmers market for no reason, it’s not terrorism. If you do it because you think farm subsidies are the work of Satan, then it would be.
Of course these rules magically don’t apply if the perp has brown skin. Then it’s always terrorism. Just like when a white supremacist shoots up a place it’s somehow never terrorism.
Also the whole “He didn’t mention terrorism,” angle is… uh… strange. Most terrorists don’t see themselves as terrorists. They’re doing the Right Thing that no one else will or whatever. They generally aren’t all “yeah, I’m totally the bad guy in this.”
Edit: Also it doesn’t say anything about race unless I missed it. He had “A List” of targets. Something determined that list. He probably wasn’t going through the phone book at random picking people. People that make Lists have a reason. Whether it’s they’re all secretly lizard people, the Jews, or whatever. It’s entirely possible it was a list of people who had “wronged” him or the like. Or it’s possible he thought those people were taking the jobs (he was unemployed), in which case it was definitely racially motivated even if he didn’t start his confession with how much he hated black people or whatever.
So, it hinges on this list whether or not he was a terrorist?
Sort of? The text book definition of terrorist is:
a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
As far as legally:
18 U.S. Code § 2331
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
( C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
B-ii is the relevant point there. So if he was killing people because they wronged him… not really terrorism. If he was killing them for political reasons, one could argue section B. B-i might be arguable as well, since he was “intimidating a civilian population” in the city of Austin. It would depend on what he said in his confession in some ways.
Of course protesting wrong can be “domestic terrorism” if the government tries hard enough, but the whole part about wanting to influence policy is the big thing generally. Which is why most things aren’t really terrorism most of the time. Technically if you go shoot up a church, odds are you aren’t trying to influence policy, but then again a lot of these people have manifestos and the like.
Basically it’s kinda complicated, but you usually have to at least have something political in your actions. If you walk into a school and shoot up the place, it’s probably not terrorism. Unless the school was like a school full of the kids of politicians or something and you left a message about how that was why you did it or whatever.
What if he’s trying to intimidate a specific class, race, political group of people? E.g. he wants to provoke societal changes that are detrimental to them.
Look, it’s simple:
If I came from a place called “Pflugerville,” I’d be messed up too.