Shooting at Las Vegas casino

It's pretty easy for experts to distinguish, on sound alone, what kind of gunfire it was.

 

If you want a real debate, please define your terms. Is terrorism violence to cause political change or political disruption? Is terrorism just killing in a way that causes irrational fear of violence in the most people?
Was the Orlando shooting islamic terror?
San Bernadino?
Colorado Springs? (Planned Parenthood, despised by both Islamic Radicals and Christian Radicals)
Sandy Hook?
Aruora Colorado?
Roseberg Oregon
Charleston SC
Virginia Tech
Chattanooga
Washington Navy Yard, DC

When a Christian goes off like Timothy McVeigh is that Christian terrorism?

The better term, IMHO, is religious radical terrorism. That covers the plurality if not the majority

 

Well when you're firing from an elevated position, the range of people you're hitting is pretty damn wide thus if you were standing in the middle of the concert area -- a cop, say -- and you saw or heard people getting dropped far away from each other in quick progression, it's pretty understandable to assume multiple shooters.

 

ISIS, and al Qaeda before it, is a highly organized outfit that has committed innumerable atrocities in multiple nations upon multiple continents in the name of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

Fuck, I guess I'm not particularly troubled that the world has decided that the "terrorism" label fits while it continues to muss about some borderline cases.

 

Just a regular guy who ... ate burritos.

 

I'm not criticizing the early reports (from civilians/eye witnesses at least) of multiple shooters. I'm sure it did seem like bullets were coming from multiple locations.

 

What a heartbreaking image.

 

I think that the word "terrorism" has come to imply some connection to a systematic movement. Dylann Roof committed an act of terror, by the letter of the definition. But do we think of it that way? We would be more likely to if there was a rash of violent mass acts against African-Americans, right?

Weird as this is, and it's changed somewhat, I think, we traditionally have thought of terrorism as involving an explosive device. If Timothy McVeigh had shot up the federal building instead of setting off a truck bomb, I think he'd be thought of as a mass murderer, first.

 

Tweeting a condolence response is pathetic

 

Check the source there.

 

Understood, but there's nothing to gain by definitively declaring it automatic gunfire until the police - who are now in possession of the weapons - confirm as such. If YF wants to withhold judgement until hearing from police because he's skeptical of initial reports from broadcast news outlets, there's nothing wrong with that.

 

I suspect a lot of Republicans will offer "thoughts and prayers" today.