<BREAKING> Active Shooter in San Bernardino, California

Which in this case is a fine example of premature ejaculation.

To be fair, at this point, based on what we know, it would be pretty extraordinary for this to turn out not to be an act of terrorism. They had an IED factory in their house, for crying out loud and there was clearly a lot of planning that went into this. But we did not know any of that yesterday when it happened, so you were without question prematurely jumping to conclusions at that point.

Even now, we still do not know the motivation for the attacks, although nearly everyone will be surprised if this does not appear to be motivated by radical Islamic motives. And the selection of targets appears to have no identifiable strategic purpose that we in the public can currently see. So, there are enough reasons for reasonable people to expect that it was probably a terrorist attack, but enough loose ends to preclude it from decisively being classified as such.

 

Wow. Just wow.

The answer is, Politics, the media, and Clutchfans.

 

It's way more organized than "lone wolf" attacks but it's also different from the normal Jihadi terror MO as it went against a very soft target of low propaganda value (unlike Madrid/London subways, WTC, central Paris, etc). My first thought is that it's a changing of strategy to go after low hanging fruit since it's more likely to "succeed" and changes the game from worrying about protecting crowded public places to anywhere.

 

To me it's terrorism no matter what.

It was definitely planned out and carried out by the husband and wife team. The target isn't one that would normally be a target for Jihadi style terrorism. It could be that because of work place bullying and people bullying the guy because of his religion, he and his wife planned it out in advance and went after the folks he felt bullied him.

Either way it's terrorism to me whether it has a political motive or not. I have no idea what the motive is yet.

 

I think your suggestion is interesting and I am not dismissing it out of hand, as that may well be in the works. However, didn't the attacker send his own kid to this place?

This was a very strange location for a terrorist attack, if that is what this was.

 

And it's the liberals who are the ones playing politics with this issue? Right.

 

I think we should pray, enact smarter gun laws, and do something about extremist Islam.

It's called multi-tasking

 

Nope, they're all mutually exclusive.

It's like refugees and veterans, you can only help one group.

 

Somebody asked me to call it a "terrorist act" apparently because they wanted me to and I did.

I guess I should not call it one now? Just tell me what I'm supposed to say.

 

You are supposed to be consistent about your application of this term, regardless of the political opportunism that presents itself (or doesn't) in these incidents and to use your brain a tiny bit. Being at least superficially familiar with the definition of the term is a nice starting point.

 

As far as I know none of those posters are in politics....

Look at the tweets from politicians about this tragedy.

Liberals - we need new gun laws
Conservatives - prayers for the victims and their families

 

So what am I supposed to say again?

You should have picked a right answer that you liked before you started this - obviously you didn't think this through very well.

 

Yes. And I called that out clearly. It must have struck a nerve with you. The truth typically does.

 

How the heck do these former secularized/passive muslims radicalize into Al Queda or Isis when both have been known to destroy ancient artifacts and structures in middle eastern regions? Or knowing that these groups have targeted and killed other muslims the most? Wouldn't knowing that insane fact alone be enough deter most from radicalization? Can somebody that is muslim or more of an expert explain this to me? Or they not know the answer?

 

Now this is a problem. Over-rotating on political correctness may have prevented these losers from being stopped.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015...ch-redlands-home-tied-to-suspect-syed-farook/

A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.

“We sat around lunch thinking, ‘What were they doing around the neighborhood?'” he said. “We’d see them leave where they’re raiding the apartment.”

 

It doesn't really matter to me, it's not something I feel like arguing about. I only looked up the definition because somehow a discussion was started about it. It's horrible one way or another.

 

I agree but for some reason, as evidence in the thread, people feel wronged if some killings are not called terrorism. For me terrorism is Breivik or the shootings in Paris. Not some kid looking to be famous. But I also don't see a problem with calling all rampage killers terrorists. Might as well include the guy who plowed through a crowd at SXSW.

 

That's a contradiction. By definition terrorism has a political motivation.

It's a horrible thing but If it's a Muslim couple taking revenge on some perceived slight they received, that's not terrorism. If their goal was to show the world that Muslims will not be insulted - that would be an act of terrorism.

Motivation is critical in defining if an act is an act of terrorism. Burning a cross on someone's yard is an act of terrorism for example.

 

So again radicalized muslims are responsible for the deaths of several innocent. Shambolic. Absolutely despicable religion.

Again, not all muslims are terrorists but most terrorists (99%) follow islam

 

Let's discuss definitions of people killing people with AR-15's en masse instead of solutions to people killing people with AR-15's en masse.