if it was an arab that did this, especially if he had done it in the name of islam. the media would quickly brush it to the side, but first try to seek understanding of why he did it, and have us try to see things from his perspective, and if only we were more tolerant of him, he may not have done this.

i can garantee you, the media had droves of researchers franticly checking to see if this guy had any tea-party/conservative connections.

sadly yes it is.

this latest school shooting was by a guy that needed help. u could look at his pic and tell. the difference between terrotist is that were trained, brainwashed, and influenced to commit acts of terror.

the football player from the Chief's acted in a fit of rage. there are differences in each situation, but in the end, you have to be 1 sick bastard (timothy mcveigh) or mentaly unstable.

mental instability, is the only thing that can't be controled. the rest you should fry for. and no i don't believe in the death penalty, but it's definately needed for some.

Its cause the media only calls people of the Muslim faith "terrorists".

No, as some other people have said, terrorism usually means that the actions have a religious or political motivation, so the recent tragedy really has no bearing on the discussion.

Well, I think the word "terrorism" is only used for islamistic terrorism right now, since the media doesn`t use it for anything else. For example all of the massacres in the past few years could be considered terrorism, since they caused a HUGE fear in the people, yet no one calls them "terror acts" (at least as far as my knowledge goes). I hope I could bring my point across.

There's a pretty long list of terrorists that fall outside of the Muslim umbrella, so I'd have to say no, although given media coverage, it's understandable to see why many people would think so.

But in order for it to be terrorism, it must be political in nature. The most basic definition is the use of violence or threats/intimidation to further a political agenda.

No agenda, no terrorism.

So no; random or even well plotted rampages by mentally imbalanced individuals acting alone for reasons incomprehensible to anyone but themselves, aren't acts of terrorism. And no, said imbalanced mass murderers are not terrorists any more than serial killers are.

That said, there are plenty of individuals and groups that fall under the domestic terrorist banner, none of which have anything at all to do with the Islamic faith.

Pretty much. I hear the word terrorist and Bin Laden pops into my head. Before that most Brits would associate terrorists with the Irish and the IRA bombings of the 80s.

I wouldn't say so. I think its more that we think of terrorist as someone with a goal and they use violence and terror to achieve that, where as no one really knows why this guy snapped, and there was no overall motive.

I would say that most mass shootings don't qualify as terrorism ... In my opinion, terrorism is an act of violence in the name of a larger cause or movement.

An act of extreme violence without a cause or movement is just an act of violence.

I completely agree. 

I disagree with the OP. 

Here in Britain, obviously the Taliban and other extremist islamic groups are considered terrorists, but we also associate the IRA and Anders Breivik (the Norway killer) with terrorism as well. 

Terrorism requires there to be a political or religious aim/ claim behind it. Mass killings like the most recent ones do not have these motivations and therefore aren't terrorism.