Security and Gun Control - Part 5

Today's topic shifts from philosophical to a bit more practical.

The assumption is: Terrorism is far away and won't affect me.

Let's look at the statistics of terrorist attacks in the US. All totaled there have been 3724 deaths due to 571 terrorist attacks in the past twenty [Ref 1, Ref 2]. The current US population is 308.7 million people. Therefore based on that historical data there is a 0.0012% chance that you will be killed in a terrorist attack. That isn't a very high chance. That's about as likely as being killed by being struck by lightning.

However, we have been attacked. We are at risk. Additionally the rise of ISIS has shown that ideological contamination can occur through the internet resulting in attacks. The San Bernardino shooting is a clear and tragic example of that. So the idea that it is far away is false. Terrorism can happen anywhere.

If you take a deeper look at my numbers you will realize that I included mass shootings in my list of terrorist attacks. The reason for this is while the perpetrators of these shootings may not have been affiliated with a larger organization the end result of their actions is no different. We meet the same challenges trying to combat the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon as we do the San Bernardino shooting. The motivations are different, personal victimhood vs Islamism, but the underlying lack of respect for human life and decency results in the same end. Mass murder.

Mass shootings have increased in frequency and body count. Terrorist attacks have been sporadic, but with terrorism going social the frequency of these attacks can reasonably be expected to increase.

It is clear something needs to be done to address this risk. Hoping that it won't happen to or near us is naive optimism. Not because it is likely, from above the probability is low, but the consequences are so dire.

Next time I will get into how I think it should be addressed.