Many Ask, Why Not Call Church Shooting Terrorism?

It would be lovely if we considered a halt to the use the word 'Terrorist' altogether. It's a term used to distance ourselves from monsters and evade deeper understanding.

TLDR: quotes from people who believe the Charlestown shooting should be referred to as a "terrorist" attack.

Missing is any explanation for why the NY Times chose not to use this term in their own, initial coverage. IMHO, this is a pretty disappointing omission.

I agree that "terrorism" is a pretty overloaded term, but it's clearly meant to denote enemies of US government (on all levels, although predominantly federal) and those who represent it's authority. This is somehow left out, probably because it's simply to uncomfortable for them to state.

Because it ruins the narrative. It's the same reason that one side of the political spectrum was calling the shooting an effort to stifle (specifically) Christian religious freedom, even after photos were published showing the guy wearing patches that are directly related to racist organizations.

The kid is a disturbed racist whackjob who was given a weapon. He used it to terrorize people, including murdering or injuring many. He's a terrorist.

Many ask, why is this on Hacker News?

But ... would the right reaction really be to call it "terrorism"?

The question arises in context of every bearded muslim killing somebody will be referred to as "terrorism" while a white ahole killing nine people is just retarded and the whole affair considered a tragedy.

I think though that the thought process arising from this question would be to question the whole concept of "terrorism" in general. Why not in general consider people who kill other people out of hate or greed as murderers and then treat them accordingly - while skipping the whole media outcry campaigns that only serve fear-mongers and the news industry.

It's reflexive and effortless to call someone a terrorist if they look like the people your media and government have called terrorists for over a decade. It's much harder if the terrorist looks like you.

Both the Daily Show and NYT are both making cogent, compelling cases that a hate crime is similar to terrorism. Should we spend more to proactively police and try to prevent hate crimes or should we spend less policing religious extremists in an geopolitically unstable part of the world?

Making an apt analogy is a clever observation, but what solutions are being proposed? What actions should we all take next?

Relevant: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2015/06/no-terrorism-terrori...