Not All Mass Murderers are Terrorists

When Stephen Paddock indiscriminately rained bullets down on a crowd of concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the evening of October 1, using rifles modified to fire as if fully automatic weapons, killing over 58 people and injuring 489 others, was he engaging in terrorism? As Aaron Blake noted, “plenty of people” had the question, “How could the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history not be terrorism?”

The answer is terrorism is defined not so much by how heinous, deadly, destructive or terrifying the act, but by the purpose of the actor – usually to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government to act or not act in a given way, hereafter “to coerce.”