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I have been more than a little critical of the overwrought homeland security panic that has been jammed down our throats over the years since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Make no mistake, I believe there are real live terrorists out there. But keeping fingernail clippers off our passenger jets is not going to stop al Qaeda's hellions from setting off a dirty bomb in Denver some fine morning. Likewise, re-naming crimes so they can be made part of the anti-terrorist paradigm (I'm not even sure what that means, but in some places the word is all the rage and it sounds really cool) isn't going to help either.

As consider the Saturday the 13th blackout that shut down the juice for up to a day and then some.

I asked Sheriff Tony DeMeo what crime would have been committed before Nevada enacted its own brew of homeland security statutes. Well, he said, he wasn't exactly sure but probably "some kind of vandalism," likely in an aggravated form due to the severity of the problem and the nature of utility grids. Fair enough.

But no more. Now, firing a bullet at a high-tension cable has graduated to the big leagues. DeMeo said that if Nye County were to prosecute a suspect in the case, he would ask that a charge of "domestic terrorism" be brought to bear. (Nye County, of course, won't. It will either be a Clark County case or, one supposes, a federal case might be made.)

DeMeo's view is that intent doesn't matter, what's important is the effect of the action.

No longer shall we care that the idiot who weakened the cable may have been no more than a frustrated or drunk (or both) hunter who was not thinking when he pulled the trigger. According to DeMeo, who outlined his view on television Jan. 19, the perpetrator was a terrorist because his action jeopardized the health and safety of any number of people, and what he or she was thinking is unimportant.

But questions of intent are found throughout the law.

Consider one person killing another. Intent is everything when it comes to deciding which specific charge to apply. It could be deliberate, planned, malice aforethought first-degree murder, it might be second-degree murder, it might be some form of manslaughter or negligent homicide or vehicular homicide.

Were intent not considered, we would just have "murder" and everyone would be brought to trial for the same thing. Accidental shooting? Not now, you're facing a capital charge, period.

And this is why referring to the shot that weakened the cable as "domestic terrorism" is over the top.

Tim McVeigh was a real domestic terrorist. He spent weeks and months preparing to blow up a federal building.

He acquired a truck and loaded it with fuel and ammonium nitrate and conspired with a partner and scoped out the building he had targeted, and then he deliberately and cold-bloodedly murdered men, women and children for some demented political end.

But to suggest that the twit with a .223-caliber rifle who took a shot or two at a transmission line should be treated as at all similar to McVeigh makes no sense and suggests a lack of perspective.

Given DeMeo's definition, one can only imagine how the law might be interpreted. What once was a stupid driver running a stop sign and T-boning a sheriff's cruiser might now be treated as a desperate terrorist attack on law enforcement. Intent doesn't matter.

Selling meth, which is certainly as injurious to health and safety as blowing out the lights one morning, could be listed as a terrorist offense.

Heck, almost any crime could be interpreted as terrorism once you choose to ignore intent.

And if intent is no longer important, what would happen if a VEA crew killed the power by accident. Not even a crime, but hey, intent doesn't matter -- they're clearly partisans of Osama bin Laden.

In the unlikely event that the shooter of the power line is caught -- a prospect made highly unlikely when, instead of admitting to vandalism and paying a fine, he or she faces a life sentence in the big house -- how many jurors would take seriously a charge of "terrorism"?

Likewise the apparently suicidal jokers who tried to steal copper from a substation last Sunday and got nothing for their efforts except the shock of a lifetime.

(A bloody glove was found, which makes one wonder whether O.J. was involved.) Thieves? Nope, they must have been terrorists too.

Intent isn't considered to protect evil-doers, it is considered to put things into proper perspective, and that's critical if we really want the punishment to fit the crime.