6 ms·

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled p

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

taneq 6y ago
Terrorism is violence with the intention of creating fear to further a political goal. If a kid feels victimized and wants to hurt the people they feel responsible, that's not terrorism. If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition.
- hedora 6y ago
  By your definition (which I think is overly broad), most police officers are terrorists, and so is anyone that engages in self defense, or even jurors that vote “guilty” in the hope of deferring future crimes. You either need to narrow the definition or carve out explicit exceptions. If you are carving out exceptions, the definition is just “people we don’t like”. I guess that is pretty close to the definition prosecutors like to use in the US.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    "Individuals acting in support of the rule of law" is generally the exception, but there is something useful in the implications you've brought up. That is, the uncomfortable proximity unlawful judgment and execution has to lawful judgment and execution; they're both ideologically-driven. That they're similar in this manner doesn't mean that we can't have laws and law enforcement because they're inherently violent and tyrannical or anything, but it does inform how seriously and dispassionately we should approach their means and ends. I don't think that it's particularly radical to call an abuse of judicial power terrorism. What else to call, for example, a judge who robs entire communities of their youth in exchange for backroom deals with private prisons?
- isoskeles 6y ago
  > If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition. You have no evidence that most school shooters communicated such a goal (although there might be an outlier). Or if you do, I'm curious what it is. Terrorists have a tangible goal, typically coupled with demands, not some hidden intention you make up to shoehorn a person into the definition. Even Elliot Rodger, who had a "manifesto", did not communicate any sort of demands or goals.
badrabbit 6y ago
In most school shootings,they are not diagnosed with any mental illness. By that logic jihadist terrorists are sociopathic and mentally ill as well. You are right about their lack of interest in affecting change in governmental politics but they are many times (not always) trying to affect change in social politics. They prepare well ahead of time,plan out their actions and advertise their gripe against society.
- watwut 6y ago
  Are you sure about that? Because when I read about school shootings, they were being done by individuals who were displaying plenty of red flags and signs they are not ok mentally. I cant recall one who would act like normal person and multiple disturbed ones.
jschwartzi 6y ago
Which is one of the reasons for the shift in US politics from treating combatants as combatants. Terrorism is now just a word for anyone who disagrees with us. Whereas acknowledging the organization as a hostile state within an established state means that we have to actually treat it like a war, or treat the combatants like criminals and put them on trial. The term "terrorist" is now just a label that gets applied to anyone who is too inconvenient to treat as a criminal.
bsanr2 6y ago
The prototypical school shooters (the Columbine duo) filled their notebooks with misogynistic, white supremacist screeds. If you ever thought it strange the hysteria over video game violence and Satanism that emerged from that attack, it's because your instincts were correct. The media was reticent to cover what was really driving their violence because the conversation would have been uncomfortable for the sizable portion of Americans who agreed with their views on women and minorities but felt no need to shoot up a high school. Unfortunately, the narrative that resulted colored later discourse with less-than-accurate assumptions about the nature of mass school shootings. They're overwhelmingly not carried out by bullied loners, but instead by entitled, ostracized bullies who aren't stopped because they don't fit the American conceptualization of who commits violence. To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds.
- watwut 6y ago
  > To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds. Inst that simply because men with military or law enforcement backgrounds are more violent in general?

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

taneq 6y ago

Terrorism is violence with the intention of creating fear to further a political goal. If a kid feels victimized and wants to hurt the people they feel responsible, that's not terrorism. If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition.

hedora 6y ago
By your definition (which I think is overly broad), most police officers are terrorists, and so is anyone that engages in self defense, or even jurors that vote “guilty” in the hope of deferring future crimes. You either need to narrow the definition or carve out explicit exceptions. If you are carving out exceptions, the definition is just “people we don’t like”. I guess that is pretty close to the definition prosecutors like to use in the US.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  "Individuals acting in support of the rule of law" is generally the exception, but there is something useful in the implications you've brought up. That is, the uncomfortable proximity unlawful judgment and execution has to lawful judgment and execution; they're both ideologically-driven. That they're similar in this manner doesn't mean that we can't have laws and law enforcement because they're inherently violent and tyrannical or anything, but it does inform how seriously and dispassionately we should approach their means and ends. I don't think that it's particularly radical to call an abuse of judicial power terrorism. What else to call, for example, a judge who robs entire communities of their youth in exchange for backroom deals with private prisons?
isoskeles 6y ago
> If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition. You have no evidence that most school shooters communicated such a goal (although there might be an outlier). Or if you do, I'm curious what it is. Terrorists have a tangible goal, typically coupled with demands, not some hidden intention you make up to shoehorn a person into the definition. Even Elliot Rodger, who had a "manifesto", did not communicate any sort of demands or goals.

badrabbit 6y ago

In most school shootings,they are not diagnosed with any mental illness. By that logic jihadist terrorists are sociopathic and mentally ill as well. You are right about their lack of interest in affecting change in governmental politics but they are many times (not always) trying to affect change in social politics. They prepare well ahead of time,plan out their actions and advertise their gripe against society.

watwut 6y ago
Are you sure about that? Because when I read about school shootings, they were being done by individuals who were displaying plenty of red flags and signs they are not ok mentally. I cant recall one who would act like normal person and multiple disturbed ones.

jschwartzi 6y ago

Which is one of the reasons for the shift in US politics from treating combatants as combatants. Terrorism is now just a word for anyone who disagrees with us. Whereas acknowledging the organization as a hostile state within an established state means that we have to actually treat it like a war, or treat the combatants like criminals and put them on trial. The term "terrorist" is now just a label that gets applied to anyone who is too inconvenient to treat as a criminal.

bsanr2 6y ago

The prototypical school shooters (the Columbine duo) filled their notebooks with misogynistic, white supremacist screeds. If you ever thought it strange the hysteria over video game violence and Satanism that emerged from that attack, it's because your instincts were correct. The media was reticent to cover what was really driving their violence because the conversation would have been uncomfortable for the sizable portion of Americans who agreed with their views on women and minorities but felt no need to shoot up a high school. Unfortunately, the narrative that resulted colored later discourse with less-than-accurate assumptions about the nature of mass school shootings. They're overwhelmingly not carried out by bullied loners, but instead by entitled, ostracized bullies who aren't stopped because they don't fit the American conceptualization of who commits violence. To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds.

watwut 6y ago
> To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds. Inst that simply because men with military or law enforcement backgrounds are more violent in general?