You are reading a single comment by @PhilDAS and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
PhilDAS
For what it's worth, the way I divide these things up in my little brain is that terrorists are people who imagine that as individuals they can wage war against states. They love being considered terrorists because it validates their hubris to be able to have their acts thought of as acts of warfare. The reason why so many are willing to risk/actively seek death is because they consider themselves soldiers in (non-existent) armies.
Roughly the same pattern even applies to guerilla forces spread out over large areas, although obviously their lack of statehood doesn't preclude them from assembling large numbers of people, and they might even eventually succeed in establishing states. There's still a distinction between them and opposing forces in a civil war.
Obviously, lone wolves can consider themselves connected to Internet propaganda or any old guff put out by some group, but I think a hate crime is different from terrorism in that the perpetrator doesn't consider themselves acting particularly against a state, but against other individuals or a group of individuals, so someone shouting 'I want to kill Muslims' wouldn't be a terrorist under that heading.
At the same time, to me none of these distinctions matter. I consider them all common murderers.
RIP unknown victim (and here's hoping that nobody else dies as a result of this).