Then we hear that specific Muslims had the necessary information and didn't report it.
We insist those two things are at odds, because we go language stupid in the interests of protecting those that we want to be paternalistic to, and those who insist on denying any culpability because they want to protect their selves in some fashions.
It's too much for many to grasp.
"Most Muslims can do nothing more to stop terror any more than most Americans can. Most of us will never meet a terrorist, much less be privy to this kind of information. However, Muslims account for a disproportionate share of 'terror' attacks, whether because that's the nature of things or because of the definitions we use, and we should be able to ask why there's this kind of disproportionality. In some cases, it's because of what other Muslims have told the perps. Dylann Roof picked up on white-supremacist hate speech, but we bend over backwards to avoid saying that Mateen picked up on 'Muslim supremacist hate speech' until it's clear that the appropriate sources have decreed it not to be Muslim or Islamic at all. However, it usually turns out that there are members of the Muslim community that could have taken fairly simple steps to prevent the carnage. *Those* Muslims, like Dylann Roof's buddy Meaks, *are* partly responsible for the deaths. Now, if the reason they don't go to the authorities is because they're protective of the impact it would have on their honor or values or their religion, and this is an attitude shared by the community or a subsection of the community, it becomes a community issue. Whether it's the good-ol'-boy idea that you don't snitch on friends--Meaks' meek defense--or whether it's because you don't inform on those in whatever your community is to outsiders makes no difference."
See? It's possible to absolve most of any guilty, still say some are guilty, and even ask why it is that there's a disproportionality without condemning all members of a group. It's possible to point out that there might be cultural factors that favor allowing killers to plan and execute their acts, or even go free, and to include under that Muslims, whites, and pretty much every other ethnic group. When you see a killing in Chicago or in Paris, odds are somebody knows who did it, why, and where the person is--and feels that it's either wrong or dangerous to divulge this information. Instead, we can see one news report showing that members of "the community" knew but that there's nothing "the community" can do. As though members aren't the community.
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