What is a “hate crime?” Shoot up a school because you hate teachers or a courthouse because you hate lawyers: not a hate crime. Shoot up a senior-citizens center because you hate old people or a Chinese New Year’s parade because you hate Asians: a hate crime.
It would seem that well before Sept. 11, there was plenty of “hate” to go around. So much so that on Oct. 8, 2000, New York became the 44th state to enact a “hate crimes” statute. The statute “stiffens penalties for many crimes if they are motivated by bias against a victim’s race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability or age.”
