Terrorism versus Gun Violence

By Laura Fawaz, contributing writer

If you ask the average American what a threat they feel most to the safety of America, most will respond, terrorism.  Though once the data is shown, a different threat appears.

According to various sources such as the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and Security Data for America, below are the statistics on a 10-year average of each category of deaths.  Though it should be mentioned that I hesitate to use the phrase ‘Islamic jihadist’ as the two do not correlate and should not be used together, especially since Islam is the only faith this context is used in.  These phrases come from the groups that gathered the data.

• ‘Islamic jihadist immigrants’ = 2
• Far right-wing terrorists = 5
• All ‘Islamic jihadist’ terrorists (including US citizens) = 9
• Armed toddlers = 21
• Lightning = 31
• Lawnmowers = 69
• Being hit by a bus = 264
• Falling out of bed = 737
• Being shot by another American = 11,737

Another source on this topic is from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD).  They are a project of the National Consortium for START, the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and are is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  This is through a Center of Excellence program led by the University of Maryland.

GTD’s top numbers do not include suicides and legal police killings.  Otherwise, the numbers would rise to 394,912.  Gun violence seems to be more of a concern than terrorism to President Barrack Obama, and after seeing these statics; it’s easy to understand why. Last year, after another mass shooting in America, President Obama was obviously frustrated to have to give yet another address to the nation due to another person going on a shooting rampage.

“We spend over one trillion dollars and pass countless laws and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so … And yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?” President Obama said in this address.

“I would ask news organizations — because I won’t put these facts forward — have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who have been killed in terrorist attacks in last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence,” Obama said Thursday night. “And post those side by side on your news reports. This won’t be information coming from me. It will be coming from you,” added President Obama.