While our nation's leaders call the Boston bombing an "act of terror" even though we do not know who committed it or why, other violent acts are not given the same linguistic frame. U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, brilliantly raised this issue in a hearing today as she questioned Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. McCaskill questioned why Obama and the U.S. government have not labeled the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting an "act of terror." McCaskill stated:
As I look at the evidence that's available, you have mass destruction and violence and slaughter of innocents, and in neither case do we know motive. And the irony is, we are so quick to call Boston 'terror.' Why aren't we calling the man with the high-capacity assault weapon and the high-capacity magazine, why aren't we calling him a 'terrorist'?This is a astute observation. Why does one get the powerful label and not the other? It cannot be based on death toll since Sandy Hook was far worse, nor can it be about the shocking emotional impact of the event. Surely one does not have to use a bomb to be a terrorist. Surely a terrorist can use guns, such as with the infamous Munich Olympics terrorist attack when the victims were shot to death. This is not merely a matter of semantics, since language helps frame the way we view events and therefore how we respond. If Sandy Hook is not a terrorist act but just a case of a mentally ill individual doing something bad, then we can more easily push it aside without needing to respond with new efforts to prevent future attacks. If we label it an "act of terror" we are much more likely to take action to prevent similar terrorist attacks. That would mean we might look to passing more gun control measures, like universal background checks or banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But if we can keep our language from firing us up too much, perhaps we can justify doing nothing to prevent another terrorizing mass shooting.
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