Much has been made over the fact that President Obama used the word ‘terrorism’ to describe the bombings in Boston.  Why is it such a big deal?  Should terrorism be used any time there is a bombing?  Should all acts of mass murder be labeled terrorism?  Is there a clear-cut national definition?

 

34 Thoughts to “More terrorism….what exactly is terrorism?”

  1. If you are interested….some analysis of the Boston bombings by someone that know explosives. The comments are interesting.

    They are thinking Black Powder or Flash powder.

    http://blog.joehuffman.org/2013/04/15/boston-explosives/

  2. Second Alamo

    I think it relates more to the overall intent of the person or persons involved. A crazed killer has no intent to terrorize the general public for the sake of instilling fear. He just wants to take lives whereas there are those who take lives in hopes of instilling fear, and want to continue taking lives in a long term process. Any intentional act that takes innocent lives will cause fear, but when they are considered an isolated incident and not part of a larger plan of destruction, then they aren’t considered terrorism. That’s only my personal definition, and I could be totally wrong.

  3. Steve Thomas

    Anytime the targets are innocent civillians with the goal to inspire fear, that is terrorism. Anytime the larger society is forced to change the way it normally goes about its lawful business as a result of the act, it is terrorism. The DC Snipers were guilty of terrorism, as their targets were random innocent civillians, and the letters they sent (while intended to divert attention away from the ultimate target, John Allen Mohamed’s ex-wife) did have the effect of inspiring fear in the greater community.

    1. I agree with you. Steve. I very much believe the DC Snipers were acts of terrorism.

  4. Starry flights

    The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a pressure cooker is a good guy with a pressure cooker. Right, gun huggers?

  5. @Starry flights
    Why are you making coarse jokes about this…especially so soon after it happened? Do you have that much hate in you?

  6. punchak

    How about this:

    Date: 15 April/ taxes due
    Patriot’s Day

    Location: Boston Tea Party

    These three things were pointed out to me by my son-in-law

    I remember that, some time ago, a guy unhappy with the IRS, swooped down on an IRS office in, maybe, Oklahoma and crashed his small airplane in the building.

    1. I remember that also, Punchak.

  7. George S. Harris

    @punchak
    Punchak–Wasn’t anywhere near where the Boston Tea Party took place. In addition, no connection between the original Boston Tea Party and the present day Tea Party. The original Boston Tea Party was about tax breaks for a few.

  8. George S. Harris

    Starry Flights has had a Forrest Gump moment; i.e., stupid is as stupid does.

  9. George S. Harris

    Second Alamo and Steve Thomas have it pretty close. Terrorism is all in the eye of the beholder. It is much like the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart’s comment about pornography, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

    —Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers” Wikipedia

    An excellent example of an act of terroris could well be what the Senate did today by not approving the gun control bill.

  10. Cato the Elder

    Starry flights :
    The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a pressure cooker is a good guy with a pressure cooker. Right, gun huggers?

    Only if it’s an assault pressure cooker with a high-capacity cooking chamber.

    BTW Starry, congratulations on getting gun control past the Senate. Oh wait…

  11. Starryflights

    Cargosquid :@Starry flights Why are you making coarse jokes about this…especially so soon after it happened? Do you have that much hate in you?

    To illustrate the absurdity of your position – that more weapons in our communities make our communities safer.

  12. Starryflights

    @Cato the Elder
    Don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or what, but when a majority of the Senate votes for something supported by 90 percent of the American people, and it fails, something is very, very wrong. The law would have done something crazy by disallowing drug dealers and murderers from purchasing guns. Congratulations, hope you’re happy. Break out the champaigne.

  13. @Starryflights
    Then you should put that in the gun thread and not use yet another tragedy to push your agenda.

  14. @Starryflights
    The law would have done nothing of the sort…..nice try.

  15. Pat.Herve

    THe issue with the President coming out and saying that it was Terrorism, is that when the perp lawyers up, the fact that he was called a terrorist before he was even identified will help the perp at trial.

  16. punchak

    @George S. Harris
    Somehow I thought that the Boston Tea Party took place in Boston.
    And – it was about taxes.
    The present Tea Party is also about taxes; YOU wrote that.

    At any rate / the comment wasn’t made by me.

  17. George S. Harris

    @punchak
    The Boston Tea Party was about tax breaks. What I was trying to convey was that the Boston Tea Party did not take place where the marathon took place. At least that is what I thought your son-in-law intimated. The Boston Tea Party cam e about because the East India Company was getting a tax break.

  18. George S. Harris

    Back to the ORIGINAL QUESTION. There is no clear national or international definition of TERRORISM. Ever since people started trying to codify the “Laws of War” (1899), the definition of what constitutes terrorism has plagued the definers. As late as 2000, the United Nations attempted to define terrorism as: Since 2000, the United Nations General Assembly has been negotiating a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. The definition of the crime of terrorism, which has been on the negotiating table since 2002 reads as follows:

    “1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means, unlawfully and intentionally, causes:
    (a) Death or serious bodily injury to any person; or
    (b) Serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system, an infrastructure facility or the environment; or
    (c) Damage to property, places, facilities, or systems referred to in paragraph 1 (b) of this article, resulting or likely to result in major economic loss, when the purpose of the conduct, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” [Wikipedia]

    One man’s act of terrorism is another man’s act of liberty. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

  19. George S. Harris

    @Starryflights
    As I noted earlier: An excellent example of an act of terrorism could well be what the Senate did today by not approving the gun control bill.

  20. @George S. Harris
    How would not approving an amendment that was badly written, along with eight other amendments, be an act of terrorism?

    Because some people are mistaken that it would magically reduce gun crime?

    Want to drastically reduce gun crime? Arrest those that commit it. Put them in jail for a long, long time. No parole. No time off for good behavior. Project EXILE in Virginia helped reduce gun crimes drastically. Go after the gangs. Some say that ending the “war on drugs” would reduce gun crime. Who knows about that?

    Spree shooters…. if a common link is mental health….check into that. When someone is demonstrating instability and being a danger….institutionalize them and get it in the background check. Cho, Loughner, and Lanza, and possibly Holmes would have all been covered.

    But to do that, you first have to weaken HiPPAA and change the law to make institutionalization much easier. In many cases, one cannot do it until said patient becomes violent enough to commit a crime.

    1. You really can’t just institutionalize people for more than 72 hours without a great deal of documentation. That’s part of the problem.

  21. @Moon-howler
    And thus we must rely on the courts and law enforcement. If they are not willing to step up… no law will do it.

  22. George S. Harris

    @Cargosquid
    Well fewer guns means fewer opportunities to use one but somehow that idea seems to evade supporters of the Second Amendment. And in the case of the NRA, they want to answer the gun problem with more guns. As Moon has already noted, you just can’t “institutionalize” people–we gave that up some time ago. The more background checks the better but information MUST be in the system for it to be of any value. In the meantime, we will continue to suffer the outrages of gun violence as well as the type of violence going on in Boston.

  23. Actually, more guns does not equal more gun crime, either. The rise in gun ownership, especially in Virginia, has skyrocketed, and more guns are carried than ever before.
    Gun crime, including murders, is down…..as it is across the nation.

    As you say…we have made it difficult to institutionalize people, for good reasons.
    HiPAA protects the information. So, how do we protect the rights of innocents while going after guilty or dangerous people?

    Here’s one of the reactions to the “modest” bill:

    ———————————————————————————————————-
    If someone asked me last year if I would support universal background checks, as simply extending the existing NICS Act of 2007 to all transfers, I would have supported it 100%. Some FFLs can set up some booths at gun shows and do NICS checks for $25. Not a huge inconvenience.

    If supporters are mad at anyone, they should be mad at the people who buried surreptitious implementation details and refused to discuss them in a public forum.

    I was adamantly against THIS law because of its so-called “improvements” to the NICS Act of 2007.

    THIS law requires the States to compile databases of all kids diagnosed with ADHD, Asperger’s, autism, etc., and to submit annual updates to the Federal database.

    THIS law codifies an exemption for the Federal Government from HIPAA in acquiring and distributing these mental health records.

    THIS law give the USAG carte blanch to create regulations to implement Chapter 44 at his sole discretion and without oversight.

    THIS law puts the burden of proof on the appellant when seeking relief from disability under the NICS system. It also sets an unreasonable standard for proof. How many people can *prove* that they “pose no danger however miniscule” after at one time being “adjudicated as mental defective.”

    I could go on and on with about a dozen infringement of our rights that are imbedded within the implementation details.

    Again, if supporters are mad at anyone, they should not be mad at the NRA. They should be mad at the people who buried these surreptitious implementation details into the bill that they said 90% of the people would support.
    ______________________________________________________________________

    I completely agree with this. And I will say this…if this is true about the medical requirements ( I say “if” because while I know that this guy follows bills closely, there were no links), it sounds pretty draconian. What do you think about putting such medical reporting requirements into a bill?

    As I’ve said before, these “universal background check” bills were more than just background check bills and some were poorly written while others just plain overreached.

    1. You are trying to establish a cause and effect relationship when none has been proven. I certainly did not see any breakdown as to what kind of kids with disabilities would make the list to keep them from gun ownershop. i am not interested in someone’s speculation. I want to see where it is written in the bill.

  24. I’m not trying to establish cause and effect. I’m just pointing out what people don’t like about the bill.

    As I said..IF this is true….

  25. http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/12/schumer-toomey-manchin-gun-control-bill-cuts-hipaa-privacy-for-mental-health-records/

    Excerpt:
    The STM gun control legislation eliminates any HIPAA privacy protection for mental health records in connection with the NICS system, leaving only what privacy protection the Attorney General cares to provide. The STM legislation says that information collected under the law by Attorney General Eric Holder to help him enforce the prohibition on firearms possession by mental defectives or people committed to mental institutions “shall not be subject to the regulations promulgated under section 264(c) of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (42 U.S.C. 1320d-2 note).”

    Perhaps some will claim that rendering the HIPAA privacy rules inapplicable to state and federal records submitted for NICS has no effect on legal protection for the privacy of mental health records. But if the STM wipe-out of HIPAA does not have an effect, then there is no need for Congress to do it. And if the STM wipe-out of HIPAA does, in fact, decrease privacy protection for the mentally ill, then Congress should not do it, and should preserve existing privacy protection. Either way, Congress should not displace the HIPAA regulations completely with respect to the NICS.

    1. The ABC XYZ gave the MNO a good swift TUV. I have no frigging clue what was just said.

  26. STM is Schumer-Toomey-Manchin
    NICS is the background check system.
    You know what HiPAA is, right? The health privacy law.

    1. Thats the only one I knew. Seriously, to a non-gun audience, it makes as much sense as if I started throwing around gem terms.

Comments are closed.