On Wed, 1 Nov 2017 09:31:21 -0400, Duane
wrote:
On 01/11/2017 12:30 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:

Oddly, I first read about this incident in the London Telegraph --
rather high on the page.

Exactly what the murderer thought he was doing isn't particularly
important.


On one hand I agree, it's not particularly important what he thought
he was doing. But on the other hand, this attack isn't exactly an
isolated incident.

On the world stage, perhaps not as there have been similar high profile
mass murders using motor vehicles. It's isolated in the US in terms of
its use as a terrorist tool. But there have been several incidents of
road-ragers and drunk drivers plowing into packs of bicyclists in the
past decade. Not to mention the more sporadic drunk/angry/distracted
driver striking cyclists for the past 100 years.

At this point it is still not clear to me whether this is a terrorist or
a person who is mentally ill. He seems to have been inspired by ISIS'
instructions for how to kill a lot of people using a motor vehicle,
pretty much to the letter (if you don't already know, ISIS published an
online how-to manual with pretty much a checklist)- except that his
backup weapons were a BB gun and a paintball gun. Well, perhaps the
third possible category is "idiot terrorist." I would not be surprised
if the driver turned out to be mentally ill prior to the incident.

But again none of that actually matters to the victims and their loved
ones.