Las Vegas Massacre Reignites Debate Over the Definition of ‘Domestic Terrorism’

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said it was “premature” to judge that question Monday afternoon, pointing to the ongoing investigation. “This is an ongoing investigation, and it would be premature to weigh in on something like that before we have any more facts and we’ll leave that to local law enforcement to work with, also the federal law enforcement to make those determinations,” Sanders said. Law enforcement authorities similarly declined to use the term “domestic terrorism.” “We have to establish what his motivation was first,” said Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo. Yet others, such as a former astronaut and gun-control advocate Mark Kelly, were unequivocal. “This was an ambush if there ever was one,” said Kelly. “This was domestic terrorism.” But here’s the problem: There is no such charge under federal law. The confusion appears to stem, at least partly, from the fact that the US code does include a statutory definition of “domestic terrorism” — as acts “dangerous to human life and appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or to influence government policy or conduct — but it is not a standalone criminal charge. “There is not a domestic terrorism crime as such,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a Senate hearing just last week. “We in the FBI refer to domestic terrorism as a category but it’s more of a way in which we allocate which agents, which squad is going to work on it.”