Although the highly popularized Las Vegas shooting happened upwards of 2 months ago, there are still many questions that have gone unanswered. However, many of these questions have turned out this way solely due to undeniable human discomfort in answering them.

At the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival on October 1st, 2017, 58 people were left dead and over 500 injured, therefore indicating that terroristic activity had ensued. However, authorities and Americans everywhere were reluctant to label this event as such, and it’s more evident than ever that this is namely because of the commonly-held terrorist stereotype.

Clearly influenced by the horrific events of 9/11, the perceived American image of a terrorist has transformed into nothing other than a Muslim male. With that said, it seems as though Americans no longer can consider people “of their own kind,” more specifically, white people, as terrorists. While this perception is somewhat understandable due to historical events, it has drawn Americans to ignorance and has caused us to alter our understanding of what terrorism really is.

The term “terror” is defined as a state of intense fear. While modern-day terrorism is commonly associated with global relations within countries, this impression is very narrow-minded. Terrorism has far more depth than just blowing up buildings in order to harm others.

For example, police brutality can easily fall within the realm of terrorism, just as any sort of torture to someone or a large group of people would. Terror is fear and Americans have become very hypersensitive to it because of what has happened in the past. Because in America we live free (a circumstance often not found in certain foreign countries), we have come to fear that the world is constantly after us, particularly Muslim countries.

What we as citizens are failing to realize is that fear is a very versatile term and can be seen in a variety of different settings and can be initiated by anyone, but only if we are willing to recognize the weight of these instances.

The transformation of the meaning behind terrorism has generated many different interpretations across America, so much so that it almost seems as though determining what any certain attack classifies as is a case-by-case issue. So while the Las Vegas shooting was performed by a white American male, this man’s physical description has caused the majority of the general public to rule out any possibilities of terrorism and have instead replaced the reality with a psychopathic label.

Because the action didn’t have to do with any country other than our own (in addition to the fact that the shooter is of non-muslim decent), it may not be widely considered as terrorism due to the new interpretation of the term in present-day America. Regardless of any sort of global conflict (or lack thereof), it is almost insensitive to degrade the significance of such an event which involved such a vast amount of gore and death.

The way I see it, terrorism doesn’t have to be solely based on outsiders. The man who committed the shooting in Las Vegas clearly had a decent amount of hatred (whether it be about his feelings toward America or not) bottled up that he released in a violent way.

As a result of this, many Americans died and the event certainly caused a state of terror and panic in not only Vegas but in America as a whole. Although this type of extreme violence may have been within the bounds of our country and the criminal was not from a Muslim country, it is ignorant to reject potential terrorist motivations.

Dangerous attacks all have the same effects as any act of terrorism committed by foreigners and should in no way be reduced in significance. In our current-day America, terrorism is becoming more and more feared and this provides all the more reason for certain events to fall within the realm of what it is.

It doesn’t matter who does it, anyone who puts the safety of our country in danger (regardless of their origin) can and should be characterized as someone who wishes terror among a large group of people, and that should mean something to Americans who desire sanity throughout our country.