Actually wait, for something to be considered terrorism it'd have to be connected to a political agenda. So either way if an arab man shot up the place because he felt like it no one would consider it terrorism.

And why would a thug even open fire on a crowd in a theater for literally no reason? Like Rudy Eugene's case, if a black guy did that everyone would know he was crazy.

The general idea is right, but this is a stupid example.

I'd say that it's a combination of both stereotyping and prejudice. I mean when you really think about it, those reasons are usually what would motivate such violent behavior from a specific group of society. That's not to say that all terrorists are muslims, or even to say that all blacks are gang members, but when a person that has one of those characteristics commits a crime it is not illogical for those to come to mind first based on statistics alone. It's simply asking yourself "which is more likely". Even with Columbine, and the way that the media attacked the Rock/Metal community initially. It's just profiling.

The media is mainly guilty of even giving these killers so much attention in the first place, no matter what or who committed the crime.

Oh, ****.... Well, it's certainly not a stretch, I'll say that much.

Someone I knew brought a gun to school back in middle school. Nothing happened, but he was labeled a thug by several people in the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper. His name and picture weren't released or anything, but I guess they just assumed.

I don't recall the shooters in the Columbine shootings being called thugs. It was simply stated that it happened either because of videogames and bullying or they had serious psychological problems.

Terrorist
Terrorism
This guy killed for fun.

Truth.

It's the truth but not entirely.

My thoughts exactly.

The Arab one is on point. If some Arab guy did this with NO ties to a terrorist organization, they would still label him as one. It's just how the media works unfortunately.

I agree with Allie on the other points.

Well, to my knowledge, there's never been a mass civilian shooting in the United States perpetrated by a black or an Arab, so that assumption is unfair.

The vast majority of them are carried out by mentally unstable--or, at least, non-traditional--white men. And in this case, we're talking about a well-educated, white graduate neuroscience major interested in discontinuities between reality and subjective experience. The label doesn't seem far-fetched or unfair; if anything, it's unfair to him because he's probably perfectly well aware of why he did what he did. I don't like the desperation to call it racism.

Who likes him?

Idg this one . Who likes him

Unless doing the whole "mental illness thing" is trying to get some sympathy for him

That part confused me too. But the thing is, what SANE person would shoot up a theater for fun? The only way for a "thug" to do it is if someone from an opposite gang is there thus making him actually a thug. The only way for a terrorist to do it is if they have some agenda to take down the US thus making him a terrorist. Neither are the case though. Clearly he is mentally ****ed. I do agree to some extent though that had his race been different, there would be a different light upon him. But for the most part he clearly is mentally unstable. Any person of any race that did this for NO reason is unstable. If they had a reason....then yeah they probably are a thug or terrorist etc...

People are reaching with this. Always want to bring up race. There have been white male thugs and drug addicts. I think people are just surprised with this one because his background is not a typical killer and it was movie theater shooting, something out of the ordinary. To be honest when I first saw his picture, I thought he was Latino.


My theory is that he could very well be mentally unstable or just PRETENDING to be just to get attention. He might be fine. I just find it very convenient that he would be on sex website and match.com with the quote "Will you visit me in prison" shortly before the shooting. He did this for attention and he KNEW he was going get it because of his clean background.


But At the end of the day, I don't care what race he is, he needs to be locked up point black period. A murderer is a murderer.