Why Are Some Deadly Attacks Considered Terrorism, But Not
Others Are Not?

When a lone gunman stormed into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5 and murdered 26 people attending Sunday services, it was called a mass shooting.

Similarly, after a sniper killed 58 people in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, a morbidly familiar debate arose over whether or not to call it"domestic terrorism."

Concertgoers flee the area in Las Vegas where more than 50 people were killed by a gunman who police say positioned himself on a high-rise hotel building with automatic weapons and opened fire on the crowd. (David Becker/Getty Images)

When a lone gunman stormed into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5 and murdered 26 people attending Sunday services, it was called a mass shooting.

Similarly, after a sniper killed 58 people in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, a morbidly familiar debate arose over whether or not to call it"domestic terrorism."

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Lesson Plan: Terrorism defined (PDF)

"It was an act of pure evil," President Trump remarked. But he joined law enforcement officials in refraining from calling it a terrorist action.

Trump and other officials took a strikingly different tone after an attack in New York on Oct. 31, when a truck driven by a legal U.S. resident, originally from Uzbekistan, raced down a bike lane, killing eight people. The incident was quickly labeled an act of terror by the president and New York officials, and is being investigated as such.

Just hours after the incident, Trump tweeted: “I have just ordered homeland security to step up our already extreme vetting program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!” He also called for an end to the diversity immigrant visa lottery, the program through which the perpetrator received his green card.

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