By calling them terrorists instead of just criminals will these people now become some kind of martyrs to a cause?
I wonder.
They already think they're martyrs. These are the people who made a hero of Elliot Rodgers when he tried to kill a bunch of sorority girls. Alek Minassian, the Toronto van attack guy, referenced Rodgers as his inspiration. There have been other similar attacks.
There is an online community of these people who stoke each other's hatred of women and share their grievances and goad each other into "fighting back".
This is ideologically motivated violence, and their ideology is that they are taking revenge on women for all the "injustices" women have committed against them.
They've targeted members of an identifiable group with violence for ideological reasons. If someone said they wanted to kill Jews as revenge for Palestine, or kill Muslims as revenge for 9/11, people would have no difficulties recognizing it as terrorism. Why is it more difficult for people to recognize it as terrorism when the target is women?
-k