The New York attack was labeled 'terrorism.' The Texas shooting wasn't. Here's why -Sam Blumberg

When a man in a pickup truck mowed down a group of people on a busy path in New York, killing eight people, it's immediately labeled a terror attack. When a man with a rifle fires into a church in Texas, killing at least 26 people, it isn't being called terrorism. Why is this?  Terrorism is defined as "the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror, or fear, to achieve a political, religious or ideological aim." It seems like the Texas attack and many others that haven't been technically labeled as terrorism fall under this definition. The article goes on to give many examples of different terror attacks (and, sadly, there are many examples to choose from) and tells on whether it is labeled a terror attack or not (including the recent Las Vegas shooting which was never called an act of terror). The article goes to bring to attention what observers have been saying for years- some acts of violence are only labeled terrorism if the attacker is dark-skinned or Muslim. While this is definitely true in some situations, a large percentage of attackers do not fall under this category. But this brings the question: does any of this even matter? Why is it important how we happen to label these horrible occurrences, when they keep happening almost on a monthly basis? It's really sad how there's been so many of these large-scale terror attacks that there are articles written about how we should label and file them away.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/us/what-is-terrorism-definition-trnd/index.html