Paddock's action was no sudden rampage brought on by a rapidly boiling fury. It was not some quick response to a sudden insult. That happens all too often in a country were so many people legally carry guns on a regular basis. There is also no indication at the moment that he held a particular survivalist view of society collapsing, building up resentment at those around him, aggravated by just having lost his job, as was the case, for example, of 41-year-old James Huberty who killed 21 people and injured 19 others in 1984 when he walked into a Mc Donald's restaurant near where he lived in San Diego, shooting customers indiscriminately. [...]
However, there is no simple answer to this important question. Those who study these matters cannot even agree on a definition for what a "terrorist" is. Nor is there much consensus on how people find their way into becoming one. Perhaps the best way to understand what defines a "terrorist" is to go back to one of the first people who promoted the idea of anonymous attacks by individuals or groups against civic targets. This was Mikhail Bakunin, a mid-nineteenth century anarchist who promoted the idea of the "propaganda of the deed". In other words, it was the significance of the deed itself, its symbolic quality, that was crucial. The political idea was that the violent action would be reacted to with such repression by the state that this would alienate more people and so set in motion a revolution. [...]
Beyond the attack on society, it seems to me that for a violent assault to be considered "terrorist" there has to be some articulation of an ideology. There has to be some notion, however bizarre and unrealistic, of what the ultimate objective is that the "terrorist" is reaching for.
The outburst has to be something more than an expression of anger, frustration, depression or confusion. If the threat that the violence poses is to be regarded as something that challenges how we live, with the attendant vast security infrastructure that demands, then it must be driven by more than an idiosyncratic vendetta.
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