The threat of terrorism (in perspective)
I find myself having to remind myself (and others) of these facts now and again when terrorist attacks are in the news.
It can sometimes be hard to imagine, but you are actually not very likely to die in a terrorist attack. This is important to remember. When the government, or anyone else tells you to not travel to xyz city in the US or whatever, bear the following in mind:
In 2010 there were 25 Americans killed in terrorist attacks worldwide. I tried to be as expansive as possible because it was difficult to find Americans who were killed from terrorism at all that year. From 2004 to 2015 only 80 Americans died in terrorist attacks worldwide.
Still pretty scary though right? Well… let’s look at some other things that killed Americans:
· Preventable medical mistakes and killed about 200,000 people in the U.S. last year (and usually that’s how many die from that cause every year). Even if that was instead, 100,000 people, that still means that you are 5,882 times more likely to die from a medical error than terrorism.
· Wikipedia notes that there were 32,367 automobile accidents in 2011, which means that you are 1,904 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack.
· “According to a 2011 CDC report, poisoning from prescription drugs is even more likely to kill you than a car crash. Indeed, the CDC stated in 2011 that – in the majority of states – your prescription meds are more likely to kill you than any other source of injury. So your meds are thousands of times more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda.”
· Around 35,000 Americans kill themselves each year (and more American soldiers die by suicide than combat; the number of veterans committing suicide is astronomical and under-reported). So you’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist.
· The CDC notes that there were 7,638 deaths from HIV and 45 from syphilis in 2011, so you’re 452 times more likely to die from risky sexual behavior than terrorism.
· The National Safety Council reports that more than 6,000 Americans die a year from falls … most of them involve people falling off their roof or ladder trying to clean their gutters, put up Christmas lights and the like. That means that you’re 353 times more likely to fall to your death doing something idiotic than die in a terrorist attack.
· The agency in charge of workplace safety – the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration – reports that 4,609 workers were killed on the job in 2011 within the U.S. homeland. In other words, you are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than terrorism.
· The CDC notes that 3,177 people in the US starved to death in 2011, which means you are 187 times more likely to starve to death in America than be killed by terrorism.
· You might have toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the microscopic parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which the CDC estimates has infected about 22.5 percent of Americans older than 12 years old. Toxoplasmosis is a brain-parasite. The CDC reports that more than 375 Americans die annually due to toxoplasmosis. In addition, 3 Americans died in 2011 after being exposed to a brain-eating amoeba. So you’re about 22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist.
· There were at least 155 Americans killed by police officers in the United States in 2011. That means that you were more than 9 times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than by a terrorist.
· The 2011 Report on Terrorism from the National Counter Terrorism Center notes that Americans are just as likely to be “crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year” as they are to be killed by terrorists.
· Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show that Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism.
· The Jewish Daily Forward noted last year that – even including the people killed in the Boston bombing – you are more likely to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist.
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
kianamaiart
areudirty
izzy806
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis