One month ago, on Oct. 1, a mass shooting in Las Vegas took the lives of 58 people and injured hundreds more. Likewise, more recently, a truck driver crashed into a cycling path in Manhattan and took the lives of 8 people. While both unfortunate incidents took the lives of many, there is a distinct difference between the two. The Manhattan truck attack is considered a terrorist attack while the Las Vegas shooting isn’t. What makes an attack a “terrorist attack”?

With the recent threats of ISIS looming over the U.S., terror attacks are now becoming more and more defined as attacks for religious purposes. Today, if someone staged a shooting for an extremist religion, it is called a terror attack, but if the same situation happened under non-religious circumstances, it is labeled as a mass shooting. There is no argument over what the word terror means: extreme fear.

Regardless of religious ideology or not, the effects of these attacks are mutual. Both instill feelings of extreme fear within the public. When looking at the acts involved in terror attacks and attacks that are classified otherwise, both involve needlessly targeting the death of innocents. From a victim’s perspective, it hardly matters whether the perpetrator had a clear agenda or not. The feelings of fear remain consistent under both situations.

Others claim that terror attacks are systematic while others are one-time incidents that are not connected to other attacks. While this may be true, it doesn’t disprove the fact that both attacks are unpredictable. The public never knows when or where the next ISIS or al-Qaeda attack will strike, and the same goes for attacks like the Las Vegas shooting. Other than the mindsets of the individuals carrying out these attacks, there really isn’t that much different about the effects that these heinous attacks have on victims and the public.

The term “terrorism” carries a lot of weight, and when it is applied to an attack, there is only an increased amount of fear and unrest. When looking at incidents such as the New York truck attack and the Las Vegas shooting, it is not right to label one as a terrorist attack and not the other. Given that both incite fear and intimidation in the public, it should not matter whether there is a clear purpose or not. What does matter is that action must be taken to put a stop to these attacks for the safety of all.