Obviously Holmes and Lanza planned their attacks. Maybe I should have said that they were done to gratify their “obsession”, but they clearly had no plans beyond the final act. Holmes had his whole apartment rigged to blow. Contrast this with the Tsarnaevs, who returned to their apartment and resumed their “normal lives”. They took great pains to conceal their own involvement, and I think this is very different than the shootings, where the act is a moment of personal exaltation, like Cagney on top of the gas tank.
Clearly, everyone that has been mentioned acted in order to gratify their obsession.
Thanks for reminding me about Holmes rigging his apartment with explosives.
Now, suppose police would have entered Holmes’ apartment and the explosives detnanated killings several police officers and a half dozen people who lived in the complex.
Would that make Holmes a terrorist?