I thought it was just murder, at least that’s what they told me. You know, for years bigoted talking heads and talking jerks disputed the whole concept of “hate crimes.” No matter that victims of murder and mass shooting were targeted solely on the basis of skin color or perceived orientations and beliefs, the term “hate crime” was unnecessary and obnoxious, since these were already simple murders.
I talked to some of these people, back when I saw some hope in communicating with them. They throw in terms like “politically correct” and “big government” while they refuse to acknowledge the difference between arbitrarily selecting people to attack and targeting victims for a specific reason. Admittedly, that seems to minimize horrendous crimes, but so do distinctions like first or second degrees of murder.
Along comes the terrorist plots to indiscriminately kill Americans because we love freedom (I think that’s the reasoning anyway). Crimes of terror target Americans indiscriminately, and no longer does the argument that these are “just murder” apply. Still mass shooters who target Americans on the basis of race, they’re not terrorists, just individuals gone wrong. Do the bigots perceive these contradictions in reasoning? I doubt it, but I gave up on those conversations.