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lawhawk9/18/2016 2:59:29 pm PDT

Greets and saluts from the NYC metro area. Obviously, there’s quite a bit of news about the events in both Chelsea NY and Seaside NJ. The FBI, JTTF, DHS, and NYPD are all trying to figure out what happened, and who was behind it.

My own theory about the events in Chelsea have more to do with the gentrification of Chelsea than on a single issue like the LGBT although the two could be intertwined. That there was a device left at a construction site and another one a few blocks away suggests someone local who is familiar with the neighborhood.

Not sure what was going on in Seaside NJ.

While there are right wingers who are swearing up and down this is terrorism, there’s another reality that the right wing doesn’t want people to admit.

There are thousands of bombs, incendiaries, and other types of arson/violence that occur every year. Some are insurance scams. Some are hits.

For the 20 year period from 1983 to 2002, there were… get this… 36,000 bombings over that period:

There were 21,237 (58.8%) explosive bombings, 6,185 (17.1%) incendiary bombings, 1,107 (3.1%) premature bombings, and 7,581 (21.0%) attempted bombings. For explosive bombings with known motives, 72.9% of injuries and 73.8% of deaths were because of homicide. For incendiary bombings with known motives, 68.2% of injuries were because of extortion and revenge, and 53.5% of deaths were due to homicide. Private residences accounted for 29.0% of incidents, 31.5% of injuries, and 55.5% of deaths. Government installations accounted for 4.4% of incidents but were the site of 12.7% of injuries and 25.5% of deaths. In bombings with known materials, nitrate-based fertilizers accounted for 36.2% of injuries and 30.4% of deaths, and smokeless powder and black powder accounted for 33.2% of injuries and 27.1% of deaths.

There’s been a decline in these incidents, just as there’s been a decline in crime overall, but I don’t have specifics through the current year at hand.

And yes, arson/incendiaries are included in with bombings, so there’s overlaps with intentional attacks.

But I think that it’s interesting that the law enforcement statements so far have said that the NYC incident isn’t terrorism, which suggests a more localized purpose/reason, as opposed to the lone wolf attempts such as the Times Square bombing attempt, the Boston bombing, etc.