Let's not idolize crazy. Fascinating, yes. But supervillains have redeeming qualities. There's nothing redeeming about a car bomb.

Defined agree that this was a heinous act.

But it seems this person or group of people took multiple measures (Christmas morning, gun shot sounds, verbal notice of intention) to make sure civilians had notice and time to get to a safe distance.

Just seems a bit odd and unprecedented that an act like this was carried out with explicit intent to minimize civilian harm and casualties.

Will be interesting to hear more about what actually happened, by whom, and their motives, if any of this ever becomes known.

It's very much precedented. The IRA would provide warnings for their bombings, with varying levels of success in averting civilian casualties.

Well playing a warning and picking a time and place to minimize casualties is some kind of redeeming. It would certainly be worse if they tried to kill people, picking a crowded place and time.

I guess. I'm just sad I lived to see a second legit terrorist attack on American soil. I remember being in 8th grade when sept11 happened.

I think there have been several attacks of this magnitude or worse since September 11. e.g. The Boston Marathon bombing or the anthrax attacks, or Christopher Dorner (though maybe that's less terrorist and more revenge). There have been lots.

I think, so long as this wasn't a test run for a coordinated attack on the telecoms, then this is not a very bad terrorist attack.

It's a weird thing about our recall bias that this thread hasn't mentioned any of the mass shootings that have taken place in recent memory. A few that come to mind are the shootings at the Charleston church, the Tree of Life Synagogue, El Paso, and the Pulse Nightclub. None reached the scale of 9/11 but there's been a parade of horrors since 9/11.

Yeah, that’s a good point. I forgot entirely about the Boston marathon bombing. And in comparison, that one was indeed much worse... my Airbnb host at the time was participating in the race, and almost got caught in the explosion.

Hmm. Well, it will be interesting to see whatever motivated this bombing.

That's not even counting the hundreds of officially sanctioned terror attacks by US police in that time.

Also, from the 9/11 and anthrax era, the DC area sniper shootings.