Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) described the Las Vegas shooting spree Sunday that killed two police officers and one civilian as a domestic act of “terrorism” by the perpetrators, who ended up taking their own lives.
In response to a question Tuesday from TPM about whether that constitutes domestic terror, Reid described the shooting in graphic detail and said, “I [don’t know] what’s in Webster’s Dictionary but that sounds like a lot of terrorism and I know it’s domestic in nature.”
The perpetrators were identified as Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller, a married couple. Jerad Miller has expressed fervent animosity toward the federal government, mixing Second Amendment advocacy with violent rhetoric and calls for armed revolution.
Reid’s counterpart in the lower chamber, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), resisted the label of domestic terrorism when asked Tuesday. He hesitated and said, “I’m not sure how I’d describe it,” calling it a “horrific crime.”
