Are you saying a lone nut job can't be a terrorist?
Think John Mohammad, the DC sniper.
Yes, lone nut jobs CAN be terrorists. The unibomber would be an example as he had a specific ideological agenda that he was attempting to push through fear by his actions.
The sniper would not be in my mind. As of now there doesn't seem like any over whelming evidence that he was doing his killings with the outward, stated or obvious purpose to push for an ideological agenda through fear tactics.
Simply causing people to be afraid for their lives is not "terrorism" in my mind. If that was the case every single robber could be a "Terrorist" cause I think most people are at least a little terrified if a gun is pointed at them or even if they're just being robbed.
In general for it to be terrorism in my eyes it needs at least a number of the following...
- Tied to some kind of group or network whose whole purpose is terrorism (eco, politico, religious, etc)
- Done in conjunction with something (letters sent out, video left behind, message clearly shown through the actual act, etc) that shows it was done in hopes of pushing an ideological agenda of some kind through fear and intimidation
- Done in a repeated fashion against a specific ideological target in hopes of causing problems for that target (repeatedly sending bombs to whatever company happens to be having a meeting with a CEO of one the person dislikes....repeated attacks against a number of churches in hopes of keeping people from going to church due to dislike for religion....attacking a number of government offices due to a grievance with the political party in power, etc)
- Specifically targeting Civilian targets, generally in such a way that it is random or focused more on simply a high total through collateral damage, giving the impression of "it could be anyone anywhere"
Doesn't have to fit into all those different things, but it generally needs a number of them for me to consider it a terrorist act. I think the word "Terrorism" gets thrown around far to much and too frequently, and far to often if they simply have "muslim" attached to them people immediately jump to that even if the exact same thing happened and he wasn't muslim it wouldn't be. Being muslim or not is not a criteria for Terrorism in my mind. There's been terrorism before muslims, there will be terrorism after muslims.