Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, of Searcy, Arkansas gunman entered Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney’s Little Rock office and shot him several times in the upper body, killing him. The gunman entered the campaign offices and said he was interested in volunteering, but then pushed his way through to Gwatney’s offices and murdered him.
59-year-old Jim Adkisson killed two parishioners and wounded many others in a Tennessee church shooting. He left a four-page letter ranting against liberals, was known by his acquaintances to hate “blacks, gays and anyone who was different from him,” left a pile of books by O’Reilly, Savage and Hannity behind in his car, and even wore a red-white-and-blue shirt to his church killing spree.
Richard Andrew Poplawski, who shot and killed 3 police officers, was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry. Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.
These people are terrorists. They are not killing to defend themselves, or for money, or for respect. They are killing to make a statement. They are murdering innocent people and civil servants in an attempt to terrify, intimidate and silence their opponents, which is the essence of terrorism.
This is exactly why the Bush administration was correct to include people like this on the extremist watch list, and exactly why it’s a good idea for the Obama administration to keep them on the list.
