You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist
cato.org
cato.org
Last I heard, both of those causes of death are almost negligible compared to things like heart disease, cancer, and car accidents. So I have some doubt about this statement by the author
> The point of the quote is to focus people on sources of mortality society-wide, because this focus can guide public policy efforts at reducing death.
With that said, yes, people are irrationally afraid of death by terrorism. But comparing that to their chance of death by cop is not illustrative. Comparing to their chance of death by traffic accident would be more relevant.
Not really. The increases in LEA capabilities and militarized tactics took a massive leap post 9/11 largely based on the idea of preventing terrorism. If those impacts are now causing more harm than the thing they are intended to prevent, then there is a clear problem and highlighting it shows that such a response is wrongheaded.
The other causes of death in this case are not relevant at all to the point, however the broader approach would advocate that the more frequent causes of death should be addressed before other less probable causes of death.
If we want to stop terrorism without trading it for something worse, we need to deal with the root of the problem: an aggressive, imperialistic foreign policy that costs more that we can afford, makes us insecure, and benefits only a tiny elite.
Terrorism is a political tool. There is no willingness for it to stop. On the contrary. Both the aggressor and the victim will politically benefit from it. The "victim" will push for more State Power and more population control, and the aggressor will use any act of retaliation to recruit more people on their side.
The source for this article, which is linked in the third paragraph, does exactly that: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/04/statistics-you-are-no...
I find it odd that killings by cops are acceptable. We shouldn't settle for anything less than zero when offenders are unarmed.
eight and a half times
less likely to die due to terrorism on US soil (Before and after war on terror). That is just what statistics can do if you take any two numbers and start doing "science" with them. As far as I can tell the statistics author quotes actually compiled from different sources, which makes it even more questionable. I do not doubt the number provided by author is correct, however I just demonstrated that correctness is not enough, you need to treat your data and questions you ask of that data carefully in order to come up with something useful.
Original post below:
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There is a lie, there is a bold lie, and there is statistics.
These are only a few variables that might contribute to that number:
1. There are actually vastly more cops compared to terrorists.
2. Terrorists do not discriminate targets. Cops usually have a very specific set of people they are targeting (I.E. carrying guns and shooting at other people/gangs).
3. How many of those people killed by cops, were trying to shoot back? Terrorists usually kill people who do not fight back.
I am all up for this kind of statistics, however this one seems a bit sensationalist.
The fact that I'm personally extremely unlikely to be killed by either terrorists or cops isn't the reason the statistic is important.
The statistic is important for public policy debate because there is 8 times more progress to be made in terms of saving lives by dealing with the problem of police killings.
Or any variation of "fits the description."
3. How many of those people killed by cops, were trying to shoot back? Terrorists usually kill people who do not fight back.
Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforce... (killings are broken down by year, month and incidents)
attack: 8
feeling + weapons: 1
fleeing: 2^
weapons: 6
mistake: 3*
^ - cop charged with manslaughter
* - a robbery suspect lied about a gun. - mistook cell phone for a gun. - pulled out toy submachinegun
a. This adds up to 20, so I missed one. I got no idea which one.
b. Allegedly every mistake killing had at least one mitigating circumstance (And only case of a guy just fleeing and being shot got cop charged with manslaughter).
I did a quick perusal of other months in 2012, and they look similar. According to wikipedia cops killed 587 people in 2012 [1], at the same time 120-127 cops were killed [2]. If pattern established in my quick count holds, then a U.S. cop is more likely to be killed than kill somebody who: does not flee from or point things at cops (especially things that might look like guns).
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforce... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_police_officer...
P.S. I am really floored this is how numbers worked out. I would love detailed analysis/count/breakdown of these killing by law enforcement numbers.
Hint: The point you are suppose to get here is not that the police are terrible.
You certainly are not making that point. Far from it.
* I made up number that was used for that based on a very small sample. Please let me know if I messed up somewhere, I am quite curious about it.
For me at least I'm very unlikely to be attacking cops any time soon...
Red cars, teenagers, people posessing this week's prohibited victimless drug, people failing to stop while under quota, skateboarders, etc.
That means that society is improperly calibrated to actually reducing mortality and there's no better way to recalibrate than some kind of sensationalist headline that really makes the point.
It only gets worse when you throw in something emotionally charged, like risk. Humans are absolutely awful at evaluating risk rationally.
Consider the standard HN example of robotic cars that are safer by an order or magnitude or two than human-piloted cars. The first time somebody will be killed by a robotic car (and it will happen eventually) the public will be calling for heads on a platter, even though the robotic cars are safer than human-piloted cars that kill hundreds every day.
However the irrationality that comes into play with a robot car killing a human means that the creators of such cars are going to go above and beyond to do what they can to prevent it. By virtue of human irrationality we get safer robot cars.
We're asking them to do the impossible, and they're coming close to doing it. I get the bit about trying to recalibrate the public's perception of risk, but don't make them freak out about the cops to make your point.
Regardless, you are missing the point of the comparison. The comparison should not be taken to imply "You should fear the police". That would be an irrational takeaway from a comparison between police and terrorists. What you are suppose to take away from the comparison is "Gee, my fear of terrorists is pretty damn irrational, since plenty of other things are more likely to kill me, but I don't particularly fear any of them."
The fact that so many people get hung up on this comparison demonstrates the comparison's relative uselessness in practice. The comparison has too much emotional baggage to be properly digested without careful spoon-feeding.
The problem with "the average person" is that such a thing does not really exist. So the answer to the question may not be informative. I think most people, when reading this headline, probably think that it is claiming they are more likely to die from the police than terrorism. Unless you are a criminal, that may not be true (depending on P(criminal|killed by cop)), and it's not possible to estimate that based on data in the article, if it's the same article I've seen before.
Only if you look at it simplistically. Terrorists on the streets don't really stop other crime, whereas cops do. Some drunks having a fight outside a bar at closing time? Having terrorists around won't help.
Also, BTW, it's not a "study", it's just a blog post.
"The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war."
Since 2011, there's been no major tsunami, nuclear meltdown, or global financial crisis... so the probability of any those things happening must be zero.
A nice analogy is the difference between flying and driving. I know many people that have a fear of flying and refuse to get on a plane, but are perfectly comfortable behind the wheel even though it's statistically much less safe. How people feel about things is important.
Does that mean everyone should stop taking the vaccine?
How many terrorist atrocities are foiled, preventing statisticians from incorporating them into the sample?
This is the equivalent of saying "You are 8 times more likely to be killed in car crash by debris than going through the windscreen."
Yes. Only because the seatbelt exists.
Similarly, the only reason terrorist deaths are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism.
You are going to need to offer actual proof of this, because it doesn't at all follow from anything you said.
(and is unrelated to the statistics in the article).
In fact, i'd bet it's just the opposite. You spend a phenomenal amount of resources preventing a very small amount of loss of life.
(and nothing the FBI or other agencies have offered in response to requests for "foiled terrorist plots" seems to dispute this at all)
Whether the deaths from terrorism are low in comparison to other phenomena is not the issue.
My statement was that "the only reason [edit]deaths from terrorism[/edit] are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism."
A truth which is self-evident.
If proof is required we can simply compare and contrast with nation states who do not have technological or economic resources of the US or UK and who are facing a terrorist threat of similar dimensions.
There is nothing more to prove here. The article is nonsense, it is fallacious correlation and simply clickbait.
Never thought of tweets as MVPs for blog posts before.
Also, Domino's pizza delivery drivers a much more considerable threat to Americans than all the terrorists in Afghanistan. You could go on all day with such comparisons. I'll bet popcorn kills more people than Al Qaeda. And through asphyxiation!