Comments on: The real risk of an American dying in a terrorist attack

By: Boston marathon bombings: terror is meant to terrorise. The way to defeat it is to remember how safe we really are – Telegraph Blogs

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:07:04 +0000

[...] wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America spent $1 trillion on counter-terrorism between 2001 and 2012. It has been estimated that every life saved cost $400 million. It may be that if even a small amount of that money was directed to, say, public health measures, [...]

By: A few thoughts on Obamacare – more questions than answers. : Dangerous Intersection

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 06:19:56 +0000

[...] wars are actually working to protect Americans, even though it is more likely that an American will get killed by a piece of furniture falling on her than by a terrorist. And this has no connection with the fact that we are blowing up poor people in desolate areas for [...]

By: grumpypilgrim

grumpypilgrim — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 22:06:14 +0000

More discussion of this subject can be found here:

http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/01/10/widespread-death-and-moral-clarity/

and here:

http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/08/10/overwhelmed-by-fear-beware-the-“low-road”-of-emotion/

Moreover, the extreme unlikelihood of an American dying in a terrorist attack becomes even more extreme if the deaths from 9/11 are ignored as outlying data. Even including 9/11, terrorist attacks don’t make the list of the top 50 things most likely to kill Americans.

Misperception of risk is everywhere. One great example is the fear many people have of flying. If risk is measured by deaths-per-mile then flying is arguably the safest form of travel yet created. Travelers are far more likely to die on the way to the airport than in a plane crash. Also, most people fear the landing portion of their flight, yet most of the risk of a plane crash occurs on take-off, when the plane is at its heaviest weight (because its full of fuel) and must gain speed to take off. Losing power on take-off is almost always disastrous, but losing power in the air or while landing carries far less risk.

Returning to the subject of terrorism, the thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that America absolutely freaked out when 3000 people were killed in the terrorist attack on 9/11, but how many Americans even notice that roughly 3000 people die *every year*, just in the state of Wisconsin, from colon cancer? Or what about pneumonia? According to the CDC, pneumonia kills 50,000 Americans *every year* (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pneumonia.htm), but where is the War on Pneumonia?

By: Adam Herman

Adam Herman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:54:17 +0000

Falling cocunuts kill more people than terrorism. Although what I draw from that is mostly that these guys are jokes more than anything else. They used up all their talented operatives on one attack.

By: Tim Hogan

Tim Hogan — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 07:47:06 +0000

Let’s not forget death from peanut allergies and accident causing deer! FAR more people die each year in the US from these causes than die from “terrorism.”

Terrorism doesn’t even crack a percentage in the top causes of death in the US!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate#United_States

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 05:08:48 +0000

Lightning kills 1,000 Americans per year, more than three times as many Americans as are killed by terrorism over the ten years since 9/11. http://thinkbynumbers.org/blog/government-spending/anti-terrorism-spending-disproportionate-to-threat/