So like the shooting of a black church by a white supremacist explicitly for the purposes of espousing white supremacy?
> Hunting or threatening people of a certain race or gender or orientation or hobby to scare them and others away is terrorism.
So like the lgbtq club shooting, or the black church, or the 1989 shooting specifically targeting women?
(+) “minority” has apparently been redefined to be 60-66% whenever the goal is to stop congress from doing something reprehensible.
Trying to change the behavior of a group of people by using violence is what I’d consider to be terrorism.
By that definition, some school shooters would qualify as terrorists. When they target a category of people (like athletes) who haven’t bulled them, they’re trying to scare all people away from becoming athletes.
I’d say, if you target specific people who directly hurt you, you’re seeking revenge.
If you target a category of people, you’re saying that those people who haven’t done anything to you are targets and you’re trying to influence their behavior through fear.
The fact that it strikes fear into the rest of the nation is ancillary. They're usually more interested in the notoriety they gain than trying to create some kind of policy change.
This really is similar to jihadist terrorism,jihadism took away american's privacy and mass shooters with gripes against american socio-politics have americans living in trauma over active shooter drills and gun toting teachers. Not only are they both terrorism, they both won!
Al-qaeda is eradicated but they won, I fear many would credit 9/11 as the begining of the end of america. Much like insurgent warfare,terrorism will be studied as a means of warfare where due to extreme imbalances on weaponry and digital surveillance the only way to fight is by terrorizing your enemy. War is horrible but terrorism is a cancerous form of war where destroying your enemy does not translate to success.
I would argue most school shootings are also not terrorism. They do create fear, but my impression is that the intended goal is revenge rather than fear. It would be hard to frame them as terrorists; most of them leave behind notes expressing a clear desire for revenge but mentioning no kind of policy changes they want.
I do think most of the race/religion inspired mass shootings were terrorist acts though. Their goal seemed to be spreading fear in those communities.
Won what? As far as I know, they didn't achieve their goal of driving out the Americans out of the Middle East. The loss of privacy and rights is incidental to their goals.
Not everything bad is terrorism. A mentally ill person going on a murder-suicide rampage after beijg ignored by a girl is not a terrorist. A person acting in their self-interest in a way that contributes to systemic racism or oppression is not a terrorist. Hunting or threatening people of a certain race or gender or orientation or hobby to scare them and others away is terrorism. Blowing up buildings to pressure decision makers into a policy change is terrorism.
Maybe manipulating a single individual via threats or minor violence could be considered small scale terrorism (but their are better words, like harassment or abuse or stalking or assault).