Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action.
A U.S. sailor fatally shot two civilian Defense Department employees and wounded a third at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii before killing himself, military officials said.
Rear Admiral Robert Chadwick said the civilian shipyard worker who was wounded was stable. The gunman has been tentatively identified as an active duty sailor assigned to a submarine, he said.
"We have no indication yet whether they were targeted or if it was a random shooting," Chadwick said.
The shooting happened around 2:30 p.m. at Dry Dock 2 in the shipyard at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Navy Region Hawaii spokeswoman Lydia Robertson said. The shooting forced the base into lockdown, but the scene has been secured.
One witness who did not give his name told NBC affiliate KHNL of Honolulu in a phone interview that he was at his desk and heard loud pops that he thought to be gunshots and looked out the window to see a person he thought was a shooter point a gun at his head and fire.
This is the biggest gun related Innocent in Hawaii since Pearl Harbor.
Gun related incident and a tragedy, and sure to prompt more discussion of workplace violence and the stresses of military service, but would you really call it a mass shooting? I know definitions vary and I wonder which one you use.
I think the most common definition is 4 or more injured/dead not counting the shooter so no, this might technically not be a mass shooting. But when you have enough incidents happening frequently enough that you need to discuss the finer points of what counts as a 'mass' shooting its just as big a sign that there is a problem.
It's 4 including the shooter. However like you said it doesn't really matter in the first place. It's still part of the same problem, and people who doesn't want to accept this shitty reality we live in will use another definition which excludes it anyways, since there's not really any one official one.
Tho this is one of those few cases where you can't really blame guns. Or rather, you can't do much about it. It's not like we can start taking away guns from the military..
This is probably psychological issues in the military. Which is also kind of a problem that doesn't get enough attention.
On December 05 2019 17:52 Danglars wrote: Gun related incident and a tragedy... ...but would you really call it a mass shooting?
One would think a tragedy would the the area of concern, not semantics. It is kind of concerning in the first place that there is a need to define mass shootings in the first place. Elsewhere, they are a tragedy no matter the semantics. Or is it that the victims are not technically civilians, that we should not be concerned?
The designation wouldn’t matter to a one-size-fits-all gun control crowd. Mass shootings and gun violence are used kinds interchangeably. It certainly does matter to anyone on the “America has an epidemic of mass shootings” angle. School shooters aren’t the same as terrorism, or cartel violence near the southern border, not people shot or injured in self defense, nor inner city gun violence dominated by minorities.
4 killed or injured not including shooter is the most frequent I’ve heard. The original poster hasn’t answered back, so I’ll wait to see if he or she has something I didn’t consider.
On December 05 2019 23:59 Danglars wrote: The designation wouldn’t matter to a one-size-fits-all gun control crowd. Mass shootings and gun violence are used kinds interchangeably. It certainly does matter to anyone on the “America has an epidemic of mass shootings” angle. School shooters aren’t the same as terrorism, or cartel violence near the southern border, not people shot or injured in self defense, nor inner city gun violence dominated by minorities.
4 killed or injured not including shooter is the most frequent I’ve heard. The original poster hasn’t answered back, so I’ll wait to see if he or she has something I didn’t consider.
3 people ended up dying, the 2 victims and the shooter so it didn't meet the threshold for qualifying as a mass shooting. My mistake.
There is no agreed upon definition. If you go by the Mass shooting tracker it would as it's definition is "four fatal or nonfatal injuries, including shooter". If you go by the Gun violence Archive it is "four fatal or nonfatal injuries, excluding the shooter" it is not.
However if you think about it, as pointed out already by many here, if you are debating the definition instead of just thinking how awful it is that three people died and some much greater number of people had their lives put into shambles, you are not focusing on the human part of the story. And almost certainly you are trying to lower the numbers because you want people to have guns for whatever reason it is that you think they are good.
Debating the definition would be arguing that it should be such and such a number, or only one should be accepted. I was just inquiring from the original poster which one he was using, and already said definitions vary.
And since two people have already brought this up, I have a very low opinion of people that present arguments (if they can be called such) along the lines of "you've demonstrated insufficient outrage and emotional reaction to this issue, so I cannot consider your interaction as occurring in good faith and/or something may be presumed to be lacking with your humanity." When new legislation or new details/facets of the problem come up, these are the types of immature people not worth wasting time debating, and are frankly a large part of the problem on this issue as differentiated from other ones in American politics.
They are probably just flabbergasted that people given the the numbers show the USA way higher no matter the metric and the obvious emotional issues that these shootings cause that people still argue against even basic gun control. Often by pretending that these or other things are "hard to define".
Hopefully, cooler heads will get over their flabbergasted and emotional stage of reaction to realize how idiotic it is to allege fellow citizens are therefore uncaring and inhuman. A lot of bad gun policy has been crafted to satisfy the emotional need to “do something, anything,” and remains in the books long after it’s been proven to have had little to no demonstrable impact on the problem whatsoever (only impact of any consequence being to overburden lawful gun owners).
Enough times of being called terrorist (in relation to one perspective on the NRA), villain, inhuman, and all the rest in broad society and this forum, and you become a little steeled against the unthinking response. The people that jump to the uncaring/lacking in humanity every time are part of the problem with gun control and maybe they’ll mature in time, maybe not. Maybe they’re concerned with crusades against the enemy (ala “people like him are part of the problem and deserve to be insulted”) and don’t care to be engaged because their minds are made up. For the rest, buckle up for a debate and a political fight.
Or spend some time with the more passionate on my side that think the other side’s major unstated preference is to serve as subjects of a government rather than citizens with rights. Every ideologue, particularly the ad hominem insulting types, should meet their ideological twin from the other side to gain perspective.
Maybe someday the lawful gun owners, given the laws, will understand that they are part of the problem not the solution. But doubtful because they want the right without the responsibility that was intended when it was put into the constitution.
But most of those people are too busy worry about infringing on other peoples human rights, well complaining about their gun rights.
On December 06 2019 02:17 JimmiC wrote: Maybe someday the lawful gun owners, given the laws, will understand that they are part of the problem not the solution. But doubtful because they want the right without the responsibility that was intended when it was put into the constitution.
But most of those people are too busy worry about infringing on other peoples human rights, well complaining about their gun rights.
The poster child for gun laws in this Police Officer who shots the wrong person TWO TIMES at POINT BLACK range instead of the bad guy. NSFW + Show Spoiler +
Was she just handed a gun with zero training of how to handle any type of hostile situation?
There is no "the bad guy" in the video to be shot. What you call "the bad guy" is clearly someone with the mental age of a child who spent 5 minutes sitting on a stairs calmly. Why would you rather he be shot instead? Real life isn't a hollywood movie with designated "the bad guys".
On December 06 2019 22:33 Dangermousecatdog wrote: There is no "the bad guy" in the video to be shot. What you call "the bad guy" is clearly someone with the mental age of a child who spent 5 minutes sitting on a stairs calmly. Why would you rather he be shot instead? Real life isn't a hollywood movie with designated "the bad guys".
Why are you posting these videos?
Just trying to contribute to the conversation. I didn't see any threads about the issue of gun control so I thought i would bring it up here. I'll refrain from that now on. My apologizes.
Second on base shooting in 3 days. Still lots of information coming in but 3+ shooter confirmed dead and 11 injured so I believe this one qualifies as a mass shooting for those sticklers for certain definitions.
I’m more worried about the police shooting where the guy had a UPS driver hostage and rather than treating the hostage situation with caution, assuming the perp probably didn’t want to die, and bringing in a negotiator, they all opened fire, killing the perp, the hostage, and a bystander.
It’s a damning indictment of the “take control of the situation immediately using all available force” training. A hostage situation is a situation where the police don’t have total power, they want something (secure safety of the hostage), and the perp wants something. There’s no way to immediately assume total control of that situation through force without compromising what should obviously be the goal, the safety of the hostage.
It’s indicative of training that has completely lost touch with the goals. The worst case scenario in that situation is that he kills the hostage, if the police start firing at him plus hostage first then they are actively creating their own worst case scenario. It’s all so unnecessary.
On December 07 2019 05:42 KwarK wrote: I’m more worried about the police shooting where the guy had a UPS driver hostage and rather than treating the hostage situation with caution, assuming the perp probably didn’t want to die, and bringing in a negotiator, they all opened fire, killing the perp, the hostage, and a bystander.
It’s a damning indictment of the “take control of the situation immediately using all available force” training. A hostage situation is a situation where the police don’t have total power, they want something (secure safety of the hostage), and the perp wants something. There’s no way to immediately assume total control of that situation through force without compromising what should obviously be the goal, the safety of the hostage.
It’s indicative of training that has completely lost touch with the goals. The worst case scenario in that situation is that he kills the hostage, if the police start firing at him plus hostage first then they are actively creating their own worst case scenario. It’s all so unnecessary.
The mistake is assuming the safety of the hostage is the goal.
On December 07 2019 05:42 KwarK wrote: I’m more worried about the police shooting where the guy had a UPS driver hostage and rather than treating the hostage situation with caution, assuming the perp probably didn’t want to die, and bringing in a negotiator, they all opened fire, killing the perp, the hostage, and a bystander.
It’s a damning indictment of the “take control of the situation immediately using all available force” training. A hostage situation is a situation where the police don’t have total power, they want something (secure safety of the hostage), and the perp wants something. There’s no way to immediately assume total control of that situation through force without compromising what should obviously be the goal, the safety of the hostage.
It’s indicative of training that has completely lost touch with the goals. The worst case scenario in that situation is that he kills the hostage, if the police start firing at him plus hostage first then they are actively creating their own worst case scenario. It’s all so unnecessary.
The mistake is assuming the safety of the hostage is the goal.
Doesn't it seem more prevalent that mass shootings are perpetuated more by military/police officers than law abiding citizens? A couple days ago we had the shooting at pearl harbor involving military personal and today we had another shooting at a military base in Florida involving military personnel https://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-incidents-occurred-military-bases-us-2019/story?id=67543975
For the second time this week, a military base in the United States faced an active shooter incident. The latest on Friday in Pensacola, Florida, has left four people, including the shooter, dead.
The Friday shooting marked the fourth shooting incident to occur on a military base in the U.S. in 2019, according to news reports.
The latest two publicized shootings definitely bring up the topic of military or police involvement. Not that I'm too up on Royal Saudi Air Force in general. It's still too early to conclude that the motivations were from Islamic terrorism or other religious/ideological reasons.
On December 07 2019 09:15 Danglars wrote: The latest two publicized shootings definitely bring up the topic of military or police involvement. Not that I'm too up on Royal Saudi Air Force in general. It's still too early to conclude that the motivations were from Islamic terrorism or other religious/ideological reasons.
In the hours and days after a deadly shooting at Fort Hood last week, Army officials have not shied away from talking about terrorism — to contrast it with the 2009 attack and to ease fears about the motive behind the second mass shooting on the base in nearly five years.
“We have not found any links to terrorism, or any international or domestic extremist groups at this time,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, told reporters.
That simple word has a complex and politically charged past at Fort Hood. Army officials have never called the first Fort Hood mass shooting, in November 2009 — when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dozens of soldiers in what he said was an attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from American troops — an act of terrorism.
Major Hasan was prosecuted by the Army on murder charges, not terrorism-related charges. The Army’s lead prosecutor called it “the t-word.” Throughout Major Hasan’s trial in August at Fort Hood, terrorism was never uttered in the presence of the military jury, neither by prosecutors nor by the more than 100 witnesses they called. Major Hasan was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The disconnect between how the Army mentioned the word terrorism in relation to one shooting and avoided it in the other underscores the still-unresolved debate over how to define the 2009 shooting and whether it should be considered an act of terror, a debate the attack last week has rekindled. When President Obama returns to Fort Hood on Wednesday for a memorial service, victims of the 2009 shooting will be listening closely.
“This would be the perfect opportunity to acknowledge that 2009 was terrorism,” said Neal M. Sher, a lawyer representing dozens of victims of the 2009 attack and their relatives in a lawsuit accusing federal and Pentagon officials of providing them with inferior treatment. “When you juxtapose the 2009 attack by Hasan with what happened this past week, it crystallizes the fact that Hasan committed an act of terror.”
oth the Army and the White House have been reluctant to call the 2009 shooting terrorism, although it was called an act of terror in a 2011 Senate report and it has an official ID number in the Global Terrorism Database. One reason the debate has persisted has been the mixed messages that federal and Pentagon officials have put out about the nature of the attack and the significance of Major Hasan’s radical Muslim beliefs. The confusion has allowed conspiracy theories, misinformation and accusations of a cover-up to fester. A White House spokeswoman had not issued a response to a request for comment by Tuesday evening.
Army and Pentagon officials have talked about the 2009 attack within the broader context of workplace violence, although they have never officially declared it as such. But it is this latest shooting, not the previous one, that appears rooted in workplace violence.
n Nov. 5, 2009, Major Hasan shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian while wounding or shooting at 30 other soldiers and two police officers. Prosecutors said one of his motivations was to kill as many soldiers as he could to wage jihad on American military personnel. He told a military mental-health panel the shooting was justified because the soldiers he killed were “going against the Islamic Empire.” Before the attack, he sent messages and emails to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric described by officials as the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Immediately following the first Fort Hood attack, Mr. Obama avoided calling the shooting an act of terror. In a counterterrorism speech last year, he linked it with another attack that he had declared an act of terror, the Boston Marathon bombings. The president spoke of the “real threat from radicalized individuals,” including those inspired by larger notions of jihad, adding that the “pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”
But in a letter sent last year to a Florida congressman, a top Army official wrote that the available evidence did not indicate the 2009 attack was an act of international terrorism. The official, Lt. Gen. Dana K. Chipman, at the time the Army’s senior uniformed lawyer, described the attack as “the alleged criminal act of a single individual.”
The issue stretches far beyond semantics. The lack of a terrorism declaration prevents victims from receiving combat-related benefits and Purple Hearts. It has also become a politicized issue..
“I was embarrassed by the initial ruling it was a workplace violence issue,” said Representative John Carter, a Texas congressman who is a sponsor of a bill that designates the 2009 shooting an act of terrorism and makes the victims and their families eligible for combat-related benefits. “I still am embarrassed by that.”
Citizens really need to check their racial bias when these types of things happen.
On December 07 2019 09:15 Danglars wrote: The latest two publicized shootings definitely bring up the topic of military or police involvement. Not that I'm too up on Royal Saudi Air Force in general. It's still too early to conclude that the motivations were from Islamic terrorism or other religious/ideological reasons.
In the hours and days after a deadly shooting at Fort Hood last week, Army officials have not shied away from talking about terrorism — to contrast it with the 2009 attack and to ease fears about the motive behind the second mass shooting on the base in nearly five years.
“We have not found any links to terrorism, or any international or domestic extremist groups at this time,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, told reporters.
That simple word has a complex and politically charged past at Fort Hood. Army officials have never called the first Fort Hood mass shooting, in November 2009 — when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dozens of soldiers in what he said was an attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from American troops — an act of terrorism.
Major Hasan was prosecuted by the Army on murder charges, not terrorism-related charges. The Army’s lead prosecutor called it “the t-word.” Throughout Major Hasan’s trial in August at Fort Hood, terrorism was never uttered in the presence of the military jury, neither by prosecutors nor by the more than 100 witnesses they called. Major Hasan was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The disconnect between how the Army mentioned the word terrorism in relation to one shooting and avoided it in the other underscores the still-unresolved debate over how to define the 2009 shooting and whether it should be considered an act of terror, a debate the attack last week has rekindled. When President Obama returns to Fort Hood on Wednesday for a memorial service, victims of the 2009 shooting will be listening closely.
“This would be the perfect opportunity to acknowledge that 2009 was terrorism,” said Neal M. Sher, a lawyer representing dozens of victims of the 2009 attack and their relatives in a lawsuit accusing federal and Pentagon officials of providing them with inferior treatment. “When you juxtapose the 2009 attack by Hasan with what happened this past week, it crystallizes the fact that Hasan committed an act of terror.”
oth the Army and the White House have been reluctant to call the 2009 shooting terrorism, although it was called an act of terror in a 2011 Senate report and it has an official ID number in the Global Terrorism Database. One reason the debate has persisted has been the mixed messages that federal and Pentagon officials have put out about the nature of the attack and the significance of Major Hasan’s radical Muslim beliefs. The confusion has allowed conspiracy theories, misinformation and accusations of a cover-up to fester. A White House spokeswoman had not issued a response to a request for comment by Tuesday evening.
Army and Pentagon officials have talked about the 2009 attack within the broader context of workplace violence, although they have never officially declared it as such. But it is this latest shooting, not the previous one, that appears rooted in workplace violence.
n Nov. 5, 2009, Major Hasan shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian while wounding or shooting at 30 other soldiers and two police officers. Prosecutors said one of his motivations was to kill as many soldiers as he could to wage jihad on American military personnel. He told a military mental-health panel the shooting was justified because the soldiers he killed were “going against the Islamic Empire.” Before the attack, he sent messages and emails to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric described by officials as the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Immediately following the first Fort Hood attack, Mr. Obama avoided calling the shooting an act of terror. In a counterterrorism speech last year, he linked it with another attack that he had declared an act of terror, the Boston Marathon bombings. The president spoke of the “real threat from radicalized individuals,” including those inspired by larger notions of jihad, adding that the “pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”
But in a letter sent last year to a Florida congressman, a top Army official wrote that the available evidence did not indicate the 2009 attack was an act of international terrorism. The official, Lt. Gen. Dana K. Chipman, at the time the Army’s senior uniformed lawyer, described the attack as “the alleged criminal act of a single individual.”
The issue stretches far beyond semantics. The lack of a terrorism declaration prevents victims from receiving combat-related benefits and Purple Hearts. It has also become a politicized issue..
“I was embarrassed by the initial ruling it was a workplace violence issue,” said Representative John Carter, a Texas congressman who is a sponsor of a bill that designates the 2009 shooting an act of terrorism and makes the victims and their families eligible for combat-related benefits. “I still am embarrassed by that.”
Citizens really need to check their racial bias when these types of things happen.
That one's still controversial, but I acknowledge it wasn't an open and shut case either way. He did say "Allahu Akbar" before shooting, he did say he acted in defense of others "the Taliban," he was chatting with radical islamist and inspiration for two 9/11 hijackers al-awlaki (NPR), and someone with his name was posting on the internet praising suicide bombers, his business card referenced SoA(SWT) or Soldier of Allah popular in islamist forums, (and I now learn) he wrote to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi requesting citizenship in the Islamic State. The sheer volume of evidence pointing in that direction is very tough to rationally dismiss. But I'm not going to argue that the online Islamist and radical imam connections are clearly not the product of a disturbed mind under a lot of stress from being forced to deploy against Muslim brothers. Nor is it obvious that the ethnicity was a driving factor for the terrorist characterization (The familiar jihadist Allahu Akbar was reported early), and the lacking terrorism charge wasn't just prosecutors defaulting to the easiest thing to prove.
I'd have similar problems dismissing some white supremacist mass shooter that may have been mentally disturbed--bad family life--about to undergo a psychologically traumatizing life circumstances change, but also was active on Daily Stormer, and chatting with Richard Spencer in the days before the attack, etc etc. I think conscientious people can find themselves not fully convinced one way or the other without racial bias just based on the facts of that particular mass shooting.
On December 07 2019 09:15 Danglars wrote: The latest two publicized shootings definitely bring up the topic of military or police involvement. Not that I'm too up on Royal Saudi Air Force in general. It's still too early to conclude that the motivations were from Islamic terrorism or other religious/ideological reasons.
In the hours and days after a deadly shooting at Fort Hood last week, Army officials have not shied away from talking about terrorism — to contrast it with the 2009 attack and to ease fears about the motive behind the second mass shooting on the base in nearly five years.
“We have not found any links to terrorism, or any international or domestic extremist groups at this time,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, told reporters.
That simple word has a complex and politically charged past at Fort Hood. Army officials have never called the first Fort Hood mass shooting, in November 2009 — when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dozens of soldiers in what he said was an attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from American troops — an act of terrorism.
Major Hasan was prosecuted by the Army on murder charges, not terrorism-related charges. The Army’s lead prosecutor called it “the t-word.” Throughout Major Hasan’s trial in August at Fort Hood, terrorism was never uttered in the presence of the military jury, neither by prosecutors nor by the more than 100 witnesses they called. Major Hasan was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The disconnect between how the Army mentioned the word terrorism in relation to one shooting and avoided it in the other underscores the still-unresolved debate over how to define the 2009 shooting and whether it should be considered an act of terror, a debate the attack last week has rekindled. When President Obama returns to Fort Hood on Wednesday for a memorial service, victims of the 2009 shooting will be listening closely.
“This would be the perfect opportunity to acknowledge that 2009 was terrorism,” said Neal M. Sher, a lawyer representing dozens of victims of the 2009 attack and their relatives in a lawsuit accusing federal and Pentagon officials of providing them with inferior treatment. “When you juxtapose the 2009 attack by Hasan with what happened this past week, it crystallizes the fact that Hasan committed an act of terror.”
oth the Army and the White House have been reluctant to call the 2009 shooting terrorism, although it was called an act of terror in a 2011 Senate report and it has an official ID number in the Global Terrorism Database. One reason the debate has persisted has been the mixed messages that federal and Pentagon officials have put out about the nature of the attack and the significance of Major Hasan’s radical Muslim beliefs. The confusion has allowed conspiracy theories, misinformation and accusations of a cover-up to fester. A White House spokeswoman had not issued a response to a request for comment by Tuesday evening.
Army and Pentagon officials have talked about the 2009 attack within the broader context of workplace violence, although they have never officially declared it as such. But it is this latest shooting, not the previous one, that appears rooted in workplace violence.
n Nov. 5, 2009, Major Hasan shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian while wounding or shooting at 30 other soldiers and two police officers. Prosecutors said one of his motivations was to kill as many soldiers as he could to wage jihad on American military personnel. He told a military mental-health panel the shooting was justified because the soldiers he killed were “going against the Islamic Empire.” Before the attack, he sent messages and emails to Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric described by officials as the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Immediately following the first Fort Hood attack, Mr. Obama avoided calling the shooting an act of terror. In a counterterrorism speech last year, he linked it with another attack that he had declared an act of terror, the Boston Marathon bombings. The president spoke of the “real threat from radicalized individuals,” including those inspired by larger notions of jihad, adding that the “pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”
But in a letter sent last year to a Florida congressman, a top Army official wrote that the available evidence did not indicate the 2009 attack was an act of international terrorism. The official, Lt. Gen. Dana K. Chipman, at the time the Army’s senior uniformed lawyer, described the attack as “the alleged criminal act of a single individual.”
The issue stretches far beyond semantics. The lack of a terrorism declaration prevents victims from receiving combat-related benefits and Purple Hearts. It has also become a politicized issue..
“I was embarrassed by the initial ruling it was a workplace violence issue,” said Representative John Carter, a Texas congressman who is a sponsor of a bill that designates the 2009 shooting an act of terrorism and makes the victims and their families eligible for combat-related benefits. “I still am embarrassed by that.”
Citizens really need to check their racial bias when these types of things happen.
That one's still controversial, but I acknowledge it wasn't an open and shut case either way. He did say "Allahu Akbar" before shooting, he did say he acted in defense of others "the Taliban," he was chatting with radical islamist and inspiration for two 9/11 hijackers al-awlaki (NPR), and someone with his name was posting on the internet praising suicide bombers, his business card referenced SoA(SWT) or Soldier of Allah popular in islamist forums, (and I now learn) he wrote to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi requesting citizenship in the Islamic State. The sheer volume of evidence pointing in that direction is very tough to rationally dismiss. But I'm not going to argue that the online Islamist and radical imam connections are clearly not the product of a disturbed mind under a lot of stress from being forced to deploy against Muslim brothers. Nor is it obvious that the ethnicity was a driving factor for the terrorist characterization (The familiar jihadist Allahu Akbar was reported early), and the lacking terrorism charge wasn't just prosecutors defaulting to the easiest thing to prove.
I'd have similar problems dismissing some white supremacist mass shooter that may have been mentally disturbed--bad family life--about to undergo a psychologically traumatizing life circumstances change, but also was active on Daily Stormer, and chatting with Richard Spencer in the days before the attack, etc etc. I think conscientious people can find themselves not fully convinced one way or the other without racial bias just based on the facts of that particular mass shooting.
There aren't a lot of wealthy, well-adjusted terrorists out there regardless of how influenced they are by a particular group that exploits them, be it the FBI, KKK (fair amount of overlap there), or the Taliban.
Which one of them in particular that pushes them to terrorism is less important than why they are able to be recruited in the first place imo.