Galaxy The IRA were an organised group with a planned pattern of violent attacks. The Basque separatist movement was similar.
What we are seeing now are random attacks by disaffected individuals, all over the world. These are a recent phenomina.
Why is this happening? I think it is a combination of the explosion of news availability, 24/7, that means the disaffected have constant access to what is happening world wide. Another cause is I think is movement of refugees and displaced people, not just across borders to a neighbouring country - and back, but flooding into other areas of the world, in countries whose cultures and life styles are different. (This is not anti-immigration argument). I am talking about the individuals who have been displaced. The adults usually cope, but the children are often torn between, parents keeping to their traditional lifestyle at home and the culture of the new country and whose mental health deteriorates or they escape into drug addiction.
I think the fragmented lives other children have, violence in the home, no stable father figure etc also contributes to mental health and addiction problems.
I was watching a short item on addictio on i player, where the presenter said that all addiction was a reaction to trauma, no matter how damaging the addiction, it was better than facing the trauma.
I think, not just in the UK, far more should be done to support children through and after trauma and schools and individuals should be more pro-active in helping them. it is no use saying after an eventnthat the perpetrator, was a loner, had an obsession with guns/knives etc, if no one saw these as warning signs of a youth with problems and took some aaction.