If you threaten someone and then they punch you, and then you murder them, and then you involve dozens of unrelated people in your chase across town, it seems like the equation would change quite a bit.
Nevertheless, it’s hilarious to see Hexbearites’ tune pull a complete 180 on punitive measures and American self-defense laws when their guy does it. This site throws a hissy fit every time some generic robber gets shot, malds about excessive force, and then immediately turns around and justifies the same thing x100 when it’s convenient for them.
When a shoplifter is killed, it’s the unnecessary death of an impoverished person caused by excessive force, but when an entire bus gets hijacked because some psycho didn’t like being confronted about his behavior, jeopardizing the lives of dozens of people, many of them minorities that you pretend to care about, suddenly going in guns blazing and emptying lead into your enemies is good, actually.
Going from condemning the police for killing violent criminals because they didn’t actually pose a threat to their safety, praising Chinese cops for disarming and apprehending them instead of killing them, to justifying a violent and psychotic rampage over having a gun pulled on you after threatening people across the scene from a mass shooting is quite the leap.
He boarded a bus, killed a man, took everyone else hostage, hijacked the bus, and led everyone on a chase through town, jeopardizing the lives of all on board. Under every possible definition, a terrorist.