ROGER SIMON has more thoughts on the Seattle jihadist shooting.

And Eugene Volokh, like me, opposes special treatment for hate crimes, but observes: “Nonetheless it certainly makes sense that we would notice these crimes for what they are — manifestations of ethnic hatred that needs to be recognized in order to be fought.”

Meanwhile, Andrew McCarthy notes the media spin. “This is militant Islam in action, but we don’t want to think or talk about Islam, so we’ll pretend that the fact he’s a Muslim is irrelevant (‘terrorists come in all shapes and sizes’ is the official PC postion of government), and if we can’t attach a known group to the shooter we’ll close our eyes to the fact that he might have reason to understand that his religion impelled him to act.”

That’s true, but I can also imagine pretty good reasons why the authorities might wish to downplay this, in order to avoid copycats. Meanwhile, a name and photo for the shooter, here. And Gerard van der Leun, who lives in Seattle, posts some thoughts.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt looks at the spin:

Five weeks ago seven would-be terrorists, home grown division, were arretsed in Miami. Their stories have largely vanished from the news.

Seven weeks ago 17 would-be terrorists, home grown/Canada division, were arrested in Toronto. Their stories have largely vanished from the news.

So in less than two months we have 25 arrests of terrorists intent on killing in the US, only one of whom succeeded, but the successful one is described by the home town paper as “having a history of mental illness” and the others have dropped off the list of MSM-approved topics for coverage.

Can we agree that all terrorists have some degree of mental illness? Can we also agree that it is completely and utterly irrelevant to the victims of their crimes?

What we need to know –and what the American MSM seems profoundly uninterested in– is where did they come from? What made them terrorists?

With Tim McVeigh they were happy to generalize guilt, all the way from the NRA to Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Here, the “climate of opinion” in subcultures producing terrorists seems to get less attention, or to be processed in more of a “why do they hate us?” fashion. I wonder why?

But here’s a starting place.

Rusty Shackleford writes: “Me? I’m going to buy a gun. I’m serious.”

UPDATE: Eric Muller has some thoughts on the subculture issue.