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Made2Obey -> RE: Charlottesville: Guns vs. Free Speech (8/19/2017 2:33:22 PM)
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I think we can agree that the act of driving one's car into a crowd of pedestrians is an act of either terrorism or insanity, or a senior citizen who got confused between the brake and accelerator pedals. We can rule out the last one in this case. The driver had previously posted online about his desire to kill. Which should have been red flag enough to have had him picked up long ago and prevent his being at Charlottesville. So terrorist or madman is still on the table.
On the other hand, he drove into the crowd at a speed of only about 30 mph, plenty of witnesses have substantiated that. Normally 30 mph is not a killing speed, since many more were injured and not killed his intent may have been to only injure. That would still qualify as an act of either a terrorist or a madman though. Or both. It's impossible for any of us to know exactly what was on his mind at that precise moment. But since he acted alone and there were no other car attacks I'm inclined to believe that this was not a planned event, or at least not planned by the people who organized the march. My thought is that this is a very tightly wound individual, who upon seeing his comrades being attacked, simply snapped and jumped in his car with no clear idea of what he was doing other than to intimidate the counter protesters. Had his intent been to kill I think he'd have been doing a lot more than 30 mph. Heck, he backed out faster than he drove in. And yes, at that moment he was assuredly in fear for his life. Angry mobs are not known for holding people for trial after all. But I will agree, that even if his intent was only to intimidate, or injure, and not to kill, his act qualifies as an act of terrorism.
That said, this guy was clearly mad, or at least temporarily insane, and acted as an individual, not in some coordinated manner. So let's not assume his actions speak for the entire group of marchers. Painting with a broad brush based on the actions of one member is always a mistake. That's not to say there weren't any other marchers with ill intent, it's just saying not to assume one madman's actions amount to speaking for all. If you do, then you also have to assume that the antifa guy using an improvised flame thrower to try to burn a marcher speaks for the whole of the counter protesters.
This is a serious issue and we need to stop cherry picking the actions of crazed individuals as representative of the entire crowd, or we will never find enough common ground to work out a solution or even a cease fire.
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