
The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns - jseliger
https://qz.com/898207/the-psychology-of-why-americans-are-more-scared-of-terrorism-than-guns-though-guns-are-3210-times-likelier-to-kill-them/
======
jplasmeier
> jihadists killed 94 people inside the United States between 2005 and 2015.
> During that same time period, 301,797 people in the US were shot dead

> Americans are more afraid of terrorism than they are of guns, despite the
> fact that guns are 3,210 times more likely to kill them

Er, that's not really how probability works. Sure, it makes some sense but as
was pointed out, most of those people shot themselves. Since I don't intend on
shooting myself, the probability of me being shot is immediately a fraction of
the number quoted in the article.

I'm not afraid of guns because I have the privilege of living in a safe area.
I'm a lot more scared of the immediate threats to my well-being, which seem to
be distracted drivers [0] and slipping on ice [1].

Admittedly I closed the article after this butchering of statistics, so I
don't know if the rest of the article is as misguided.

[0] - There have been several instances where I walked out into a crosswalk
but stopped because I could see a car approaching but not slowing down, with
the driver staring at their lap.

[1] - I live in Ohio. It snows a lot, but people don't shovel their sidewalks.
People walk on the snow and compress it into ice (combined with freezing temps
at night) which can persist for a week.

EDIT: Stats folk: is there a term for this? It seems similar to a Bayesian
Fallacy but I'm not sure that's exactly correct...

~~~
Xylakant
Actually, suicide stats indicate that "I do not intend to kill myself" is not
how it works. In general, suicidal episodes seem to be short and having access
to means to kill yourself increases the chance you'll actually do that. Not
having the means available increases the survival rate - even small barriers
like selling painkillers in smaller boxes show significant reduction in
suicide rates. Another considerable factor are accidents - nobody intends to
kill himself in a gun accident either, it just happens. So I think it's quite
correct to include those numbers in the risk profile.

~~~
jimmywanger
> In general, suicidal episodes seem to be short and having access to means to
> kill yourself increases the chance you'll actually do that.

Well, in the moment you still do mean to kill yourself.

~~~
notgoodrobot
Is someone killing themselves something that should be included in what people
fear? This seems like it might be another issue that can't be easily compared
to the fear of terrorism.

------
coldtea
A great example how, based on your readings of the data, you can lie or
present any case with statistics...

First of all, among the gun deaths there are people that shot themselves, and
also people shot in gang shootings and such (where, if you're not in a gang
you're not that affected). So the number is somewhat inflated (of course still
bigger than terrorism).

Second, people fear going into violent neighborhoods with gun crime (say
Compton at night), a hell of a lot than they fear terrorism. They might agree
when asked in polls that "terrorism is a great threat", but they sure as hell
as pragmatically more concerned with areas with violent crime, and avoiding
them in their day to day lives.

Third, as people in certain places have witnessed, terrorism can be a constant
source of death and horror, with multiple incidents per year, or even daily if
a country goes sour. Just because it hasn't happened in some place, it doesn't
mean it's impossible to happen (e.g. if there's a sizable militant islam
population in the US).

Fourth, terrorism can also bring much more horrible outcomes than the regular
gun death, even more than a mass shooting. Some crazies can kill literally
tens of thousands via some (not that elaborate) plan. And while it might not
always be possible to predict or prevent such a thing, one can still fear it
(and fear to further stir the conditions that might make it happen).

Fifth, do the people that are OK with guns believe that if there was strict
gun control gun related crime would go down? Or do they believe that criminals
will be the only ones with access to guns (bought illegally of course)? If the
latter's the case, then it makes sense to be OK with guns, as they see them as
something they can use to protect themselves against violent crime and that
the criminals will have anyway. And of course nobody realistically believes
that they'll snap and kill their spouse with that gun (or vise versa -- as it
often happens). It's more realistic, in that sense, to fear terrorism than
yourself.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I think you're wrong about point 4. Could you outline such a plan?

As a counter-example: CIA trained operatives with decades of experience and a
20+ person team launching a coordinated attack could only kill 3,000 -- and
that was only because of underlying weaknesses in our security policy. The
9/11 attacks were so easy to counter, they didn't even work through one full
morning. (By which I mean, 25% of the planes were downed before reaching their
targets.) Reinforced cockpit doors and changes in passenger/crew behavior
means that a repeated attempt likely would result in 0 deaths.

~~~
coldtea
> _I think you 're wrong about point 4. Could you outline such a plan? As a
> counter-example: CIA trained operatives with decades of experience and a 20+
> person team launching a coordinated attack could only kill 3,000 -- and that
> was only because of underlying weaknesses in our security policy._

The attack you mention was mostly meant to be symbolic and grandiose: not to
do the most damage numbers-wise.

From bombing a stadium full of people, to gas poisoning the subway, to
bringing some deathly strains of a virus (e.g. Ebola etc) to some mass event,
the possibilities are endless.

You don't even need to go on atomic bombs and stuff...

~~~
yummyfajitas
In the one example we have of it, a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway at
rush hour killed 12 people and seriously injured 50 more.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack)

Guns and bombs are actually far more effective. Skimming the list of terrorist
attacks in 2016, the most deadly seem to be bombs and teams of gunmen (mostly
in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Nigeria).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_att...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks)

~~~
coldtea
> _In the one example we have of it, a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway at
> rush hour killed 12 people and seriously injured 50 more._

It also says that it caused "temporary vision problems for nearly 5,000
others" and that "hospitals saw 5,510 patients, seventeen of whom were deemed
critical, thirty-seven severe and 984 moderately ill with vision problems".

So this says more about the particular gas used or venue chosen, than about
the effectiveness of such an attack to reach thousands. A different gas could
have had more devastating effects, and same for a different setting (e.g. a
closed stadium).

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lwkl
It's funny I was talking to a friend and she said she's terified when driving
through france because of the terrorists. So she drives non stop till she is
in spain. And she is so sad about it since she loves france and can't go there
anymore.

It seemed so out of the world to me, since it never occured to me that I will
be the victim of a terrorist attack. And even if: what happens happens. No
reason to stop going on with your life.

I have to say the only news I read are tech news. The rest I get from
colleagues at lunch. And sometimes I skim through the newspaper and read some
articles that really interest me.

------
mindcrime
Being scared of guns is irrational. Being scared of _some_ people with guns is
rational. Being scared of terrorism makes about as much sense as being scared
of dying from a lightning strike. It could happen, but it's so unlikely there
just isn't much point spending any time thinking about it.

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kgwgk
> (between 2005 and 2015) 301,797 people in the US were shot dead

Somewhat misleading, given that most of them shot themselves.

~~~
PerryCox
Yeah I would be very interested in seeing what the statistics are without
counting suicides as being "shot dead".

~~~
CalChris
From the CDC, .326 * 33,599 or about 10,953 firearm homicide deaths in 2014:

    
    
      Firearm—In 2014, 33,599 persons died from firearm injuries
      in the United States (Tables 18 and 19), accounting for
      16.8% of all injury deaths in that year. The age-adjusted
      death rate from firearm injuries (all intents) did not
      change significantly in 2014 from 2013. The two major
      component causes of firearm injury deaths in 2014 were
      suicide (63.5%) and homicide (32.6%). The age-adjusted
      death rate for firearm homicide decreased 2.8%,
      from 3.6 in 2013 to 3.5 in 2014. The rate for firearm
      suicide did not change.
    

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_04.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_04.pdf)

You should understand that _firearm-related injuries_ will be proportionately
worse. Moreover, toddlers kill people at the rate of about 1 per week which is
significantly greater than terrorism deaths except for 2001 (2908 with 9/11)
and 1995 (171 with Oklahoma City).

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/peopl...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/people-
are-getting-shot-by-toddlers-on-a-weekly-basis-this-year/)

------
jnardiello
As a EU citizen living where guns are essentially banned (in 30yrs I've seen a
gun only once - excluding law enforcement) I'm equally scared by both guns and
terrorism. Just to outline that the feeling mentioned in the title can be
different given your background and social environment.

~~~
nadezhda18
yeah, agree with you

I am from Canada and I am more scared by guns than by terrorism even given
that just several days ago, we had one such attack on our soil.

A terrorist attack for me is like a lightning strike. Seems to be deadly but
not very probable.

Meanwhile, living among people who casually own guns (like in US) is like
living in a place where everybody has untamed wild tigers and bears at home.
Unpredictable, dangerous, not very smart. It's a real day-to-day threat to our
lives.

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Tycho
Journalists really need some guidelines on how to report on statistics without
veering into nonsense.

------
alyandon
Who do they pick when they conduct these surveys? I don't live my life any
differently regardless of the relative threat of terrorism vs vehicle
accidents vs any other violent crime vs getting struck by a meteor.

Am I really that much of an outlier?

Edit: For those that are downvoting me - I live in a large urban area with
large urban area related crime problems that actually has had a terrorism
related incident. Mind providing an explanation?

~~~
bluedino
>> It asks 1,500 adults what they fear most.

Ask 1,500 citizens in Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis...

~~~
ch4s3
Having lived in Baltimore for 7 years, I was far more afraid of crossing the
street than guns per se as the violent crime was fairly localized until about
a year before I moved. That said, guns ranked far higher than terrorism, which
is basically down at the bottom of my list with bears and being crushed by
vending machines.

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juskrey
Terrorism scales, it is fat tailed distribution (9/11 again, anyone?). Cancer,
guns and car accidents - no. Article is plain bullshit.

~~~
roywiggins
A 9/11 every year still wouldn't make terrorism more dangerous than guns, by
my reckoning. That's only a few thousand a year, gun violence kills tens of
thousands.

Unless you work in a tall building of course...

~~~
juskrey
I think you don't understand what "to scale" means.

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dclowd9901
Everyone here is trying to tackled the stats of gun deaths, but I'm really
floored by a survey that shows Americans are more afraid of losing guns than
loved ones.

------
erikbern
There's some rationality to people's fear for terrorism. The impact of a
terrorist attack is probably exponentially distributed, like an earthquake
attack. Saying no one has died in earthquakes in SF in the last 10 years is
not relevant.

Or pandemics – people are afraid of the next Ebola for the right reasons. The
1918 influenza killed 20-50M people.

~~~
AstralStorm
That was after the World War and resulting starvation though.

------
yummyfajitas
I think the real issue here is that perceptions of many of these risks is as
much a matter of tribal identity as anything else. For example, liking guns is
a tribal value of "team red" \- therefore viewing it as dangerous is as much
an attack on "our team" as it is a rational assessment.

This behavior is hardly limited to "team red". Tolerance of gay sex is a
tribal value of "team blue". Yet it turns out M2M gay sex is between 15x and
200x as dangerous as gun ownership. How many people are remotely aware of
this?

[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/are_gays_or_guns_mor...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/are_gays_or_guns_more_dangerous.html)

People suck at risk assessment in general. Apart from scoring cheap points for
our team, why focus on terrorism and guns specifically?

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cooper12
Leave it to HN to completely ignore the point of the article and nitpick
statistics. Guns kill more people than terrorism, period. Regardless of the
actual numbers, the article's point still stands.

~~~
morganvachon
> _Guns kill more people than terrorism, period._

 _People with guns_ kill more people than terrorism. Guns aren't sentient
(yet). Guns are inanimate tools; it's a people problem, not a tool problem.
Just as you wouldn't say that cars kill people and try to ban cars when it's
actually irresponsible drivers (drunk, inattentive, etc) that cause the
accident, you can't blame an inanimate object for what its user does with it.
Shifting the blame is a political maneuver as old as mankind.

~~~
arjie
Assuming you're not a native speaker, that's an example of synecdoche. Just
like The White House does not issue proclamations (it refers to the person
occupying the office of the President, who occupies The White House).

One could also say, "The suits are coming for your money." but articles of
clothing do not, as a rule, walk around robbing people.

Anyway, I'm pro-gun, but 'guns' kill people is just saying that gun users kill
people with guns.

~~~
morganvachon
The issue is that anti-2nd Amendment folks always want to simply ban guns
period, as if that will make the problem go away, hence they use the term
"guns kill people". They literally fear the gun itself, not the person holding
the gun, and that's a serious problem. The people who say "the White House" in
your example indeed don't blame the building for what goes on inside, however
the people who chant "guns kill people" invariably believe that the gun itself
is to blame, rather than the person behind it. It's irrational and
nonsensical, but go into any debate about gun issues and you'll see it all day
long.

I recall recently seeing a video (by a progressive minded producer) who laid
out several "mean" looking guns (black synthetic stock, picatinny rail, etc)
that were actually low power, single shot or limited capacity target guns (one
was a BB gun), next to old-fashioned looking but semi-automatic and high
powered rifles much more capable of harming large groups of people. Invariably
the gun hating types picked out the less harmful weapons as "scary" and said
they shouldn't be produced, while they were not nearly as frightened of the
wooden stock weapons designed to shoot up to thirty rounds in as many seconds
before reloading.

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bryanmgreen
Probably because we use guns to "defend" and express our freedom and terrorism
only attacks our freedoms.

No one ever says "hey, I want to be a terrorist." Instead they're using their
violence to support a personal righteous cause. Terrorism _happens_ to people
- it's not something people do.

