My suspicion of the most likely motivation was right-wing tax protest because of the day.
It didn't make a ton of sense - those people would tend to attack some government site like McVeigh did over innocent civilians, but quite a coincidence.
Second most likely wasn' as clear, but I leaned towards 'random violence', Colombine type act. Small group who went on a rampage for no good reason.
Then when they said these were people who had emigrated (first reports said a year ago), it seemed likely that was wrong, that there was likely some terrorist cause.
Now it's seeming more likely. It's not clear they were much involved in the politics of the region they came from, or had reason to blame the US for issues with those regions.
We don't know why they did this, but 'random violence' seems to be a leading guess.
With two brothers and the older killed, he may have been the instigator; it's not clear whether the younger brother might have just 'gone along'.
Is there a bit of irony if this was 'random violence' at the same time stronger gun control was voted down? Yes, though it's not clear the measures would help in this case.
Years ago, I made a comment that got some controversy here, I stand by it:
I said that we need to accept some level of violent acts, handled by law enforcement, as the price for freedoms, because the only ways to try to prevent the possibility of some random person shooting up innocent people just isn't practical and would invollve huge reductions in freedom and rights.
Maybe these guys could have been prevented, if some element of their bombs could be better restricted, with more police surveillance at the event, but even then they could have gotten ahold of guns and just shot a bunch of people. We just can't stop that type of event - but we can not let them be used for bad policies of overreacting to fit someone's agenda, like 'spend billions more on military weapons'. (Or 'invade Iraq').
Just treat them as what they are, acts of violence, police matters, and don't demand huge reactions that will only do harm.
One comment I've been meaning to make before we had any idea who they are is, no matter who they are, they don't condemn any group - they're a few people.
If they are anti-tax protestors, it doesn't condemn all anti-tax protestors. If they were radical Muslims, it doesn't condemn all radical Muslims. If they were Americans like Colombine, it doesn't condemn all Americans. To try to remind people not to rush to blame everyone who shares other traits with them for the violence these people did.
We've talked about the 'bad apple' fallacy - that when someone in a group does something you don't like, you tend to blame the group, while when someone in a group you do like does the same thing, you tend to say 'that was a bad apple, don't blame the group'. Unless this is found to be a huge consipiracy - very unlikely - we should not 'blame some group', just blame the people who did violence.
Mod note in the other thread said to keep P&N out of the thread & in P&N. Some stuff in the thread is in a little gray area, but this post isn't. -DrPizza
It didn't make a ton of sense - those people would tend to attack some government site like McVeigh did over innocent civilians, but quite a coincidence.
Second most likely wasn' as clear, but I leaned towards 'random violence', Colombine type act. Small group who went on a rampage for no good reason.
Then when they said these were people who had emigrated (first reports said a year ago), it seemed likely that was wrong, that there was likely some terrorist cause.
Now it's seeming more likely. It's not clear they were much involved in the politics of the region they came from, or had reason to blame the US for issues with those regions.
We don't know why they did this, but 'random violence' seems to be a leading guess.
With two brothers and the older killed, he may have been the instigator; it's not clear whether the younger brother might have just 'gone along'.
Is there a bit of irony if this was 'random violence' at the same time stronger gun control was voted down? Yes, though it's not clear the measures would help in this case.
Years ago, I made a comment that got some controversy here, I stand by it:
I said that we need to accept some level of violent acts, handled by law enforcement, as the price for freedoms, because the only ways to try to prevent the possibility of some random person shooting up innocent people just isn't practical and would invollve huge reductions in freedom and rights.
Maybe these guys could have been prevented, if some element of their bombs could be better restricted, with more police surveillance at the event, but even then they could have gotten ahold of guns and just shot a bunch of people. We just can't stop that type of event - but we can not let them be used for bad policies of overreacting to fit someone's agenda, like 'spend billions more on military weapons'. (Or 'invade Iraq').
Just treat them as what they are, acts of violence, police matters, and don't demand huge reactions that will only do harm.
One comment I've been meaning to make before we had any idea who they are is, no matter who they are, they don't condemn any group - they're a few people.
If they are anti-tax protestors, it doesn't condemn all anti-tax protestors. If they were radical Muslims, it doesn't condemn all radical Muslims. If they were Americans like Colombine, it doesn't condemn all Americans. To try to remind people not to rush to blame everyone who shares other traits with them for the violence these people did.
We've talked about the 'bad apple' fallacy - that when someone in a group does something you don't like, you tend to blame the group, while when someone in a group you do like does the same thing, you tend to say 'that was a bad apple, don't blame the group'. Unless this is found to be a huge consipiracy - very unlikely - we should not 'blame some group', just blame the people who did violence.
Mod note in the other thread said to keep P&N out of the thread & in P&N. Some stuff in the thread is in a little gray area, but this post isn't. -DrPizza
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