When a person motivated by hatred attempts to massacre people of a certain race, religion, gender, creed, nationality, sexual orientation or any other group, he or she is a terrorist.
That's true whether the killer is a foreigner motivated by hatred of Americans, an American motivated by animosity against our government, or a person moved to kill people who look or believe differently, hail from a certain place or love a certain way.
Thursday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo proposed a law to make it clear that murder committed in New York as part of a mass attack motivated by bias is terrorism, and should be punishable by up to life in prison without parole. That's a useful step, but not a monumental one.
