Terrorist attack in South Carolina

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

NO IT IS NOT THE DEFINITION.

Terrorism here in the U.S. is ALREADY defined. How pathetic, turning a tragedy into a personal quest for political correctness.

I just thought I'd get in there before the usual crowd who are quick to label a homicidal Muslim a terrorist, or a homicidal black guy a thug, but also quick to label a homicidal white guy 'mentally unstable' did.

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear 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 Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

18 U.S.C. § 2332b defines the term "federal crime of terrorism" as an offense that:

Is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and
Is a violation of one of several listed statutes, including § 930(c) (relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a federal facility with a dangerous weapon); and § 1114 (relating to killing or attempted killing of officers and employees of the U.S.).
* FISA defines "international terrorism" in a nearly identical way, replacing "primarily" outside the U.S. with "totally" outside the U.S. 50 U.S.C. § 1801(c).

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Hate crime.

Defining a Hate Crime
A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.


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Fair enough, that's a pretty good definition if I'm honest. A better one, in fact, than the dictionary definition. I'll concede that, in legal terms, this person is not a terrorist.
Coming on to hate crime, is another tricky subject, and there's plenty of it about.

In regards to the accusations of hijacking a tragedy for political correctness, perhaps I could be accused of that, but equally no more than people who use events like Ferguson to further their anti-black agenda or the Boston bombings to further their anti-Muslim agenda.