I got the impression they labelled it "domestic terrorism" mainly to give the FBI jurisdiction over the investigation.

There must be something about the term domestic terrorism I don't understand. Why is it wrong to call it that? What tattoos? My immediate thought was when they said he had a shaved head was ...I wonder if he is a radical who thinks that these poor folks were the blower upper folks and he thinks he is a patriot.

It is wrong to kill groups of innocent people no matter what the motive is.

And the words domestic terrorism...feels right. But it must have a political connotation I don't understand. I am a Republican and a Catholic too. But hopefully not a radical anything. I don't much read all of those things that get people all het up.

The term was newly defined, Gracie, both legally in the US Patriot Act and in our hearts and minds after the terrorist attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. The legal definition is here: The New Legal Definition Of 'Domestic Terrorism'.


My feeble understanding of the term is that it is used when there is "mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping used to intimidate or coerce a civilian population and to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."

If it is the case here, it would mean, IMHO, that it is a crime against the entire Sikh people, which would be about 27 million people worldwide and the nation of India. Serious stuff.

Oh.

Sikhs look like a very peaceful religion.
 

Top Ten Sikh Beliefs - The Tenets of Sikhism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh_beliefs

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/3705...ing-temple.htm

Shooting at Sikh Temple
 

Latest report on Shooter

The man authorities say killed six in a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple before police shot him was heavily-tattooed, 40-year-old ex-Army soldier Wade Michael Page. Page, who was reportedly a skinhead with a 9/11 tattoo, shot up a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee yesterday, killing six people in what police labeled an act of domestic terrorism.

Accused shooter Wade Michael Page. Page enlisted in April 1992 where he served as a sergeant, an Army public affairs officer said. Page conducted his initial training at Fort Still, Okla. The gunman was a Hawk missile system repair specialist and was later assigned to the psychological operations unit in 1994 at Fort Bliss, Texas. He was last stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, before his administrative discharge in October 1998. In the years since leaving the Army, Page reportedly became active in the white-power music scene.

As recently as 2010, he was the leader of the band "End Apathy." In an interview with the white supremacist website Label 56, Page said he enjoyed lyrics about social and religious issues.
"End Apathy began in 2005 and the concept was based on trying to figure out what it would take to actually accomplish positive results in society and what is holding us back," Page reportedly said in 2010.

Three people, including a cop, were wounded when bullets started flying at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. They including a man who heroically tried to tackle the killer. Officials said Page appeared to be a lone gunman behind the rampage, but cops did not rule out the possibility of an accomplice.