A tragic event occurred on Thursday. Disgruntled with the IRS and others, a man named Joseph Stack crashed his Piper Dakota into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. Sadly, one person in addition to Stack was killed in the event.

The AOPA responded to the crash by cautioning people to keep things in perspective. Though this event resulted in some significant damage and a loss of life, it was definitely not the act of a focused terrorist organization. As far as anyone can tell, this was one man with a personal vendetta. (You can see his manifesto on TheSmokingGun.com.)

Unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury of passing up a juicy story to keep things completely in perspective.CBS News published a story about the event and questioned the security of General Aviation. They did take the time to note some of the things we're doing to keep GA secure and safe for everyone; however, they also implied that it's a shortcoming not to treat light aircraft like airliners. I hope any further analysis they do takes into account the fact that there was a major road right in front of the building and that it would be much easier to attack this building with a car or truck than it would be to attack it with an aircraft.

Fox News took the security concern to another level and asked whether Stack's actions were criminal action or domestic terrorism. If you try to search for a formal definition, you'll discover that there as many definitions for terrorism as there are people and agencies trying to define it. I'm sure there are definitions of terrorism out there that fit this act; however, it seems like a stretch to apply that label here. This was an isolated, one-time thing without any reasonable expectation of long-term impact to the IRS as a whole.

That's just my opinion though. What do you think? Was this a crime or an act of terrorism? Is there a security issue with GA? Is there anything that could be done to prevent further incidents like this? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!