No one ever says "people are going to die from terrorism, that's just the way it is."

[phantom power]

... the cycle is the same, something horrible happens, we all watch it happen in real time and feel terrible and want to know who were the perpetrators, what are the circumstances, and why did it happen? We get some inkling and have a discussion of what the implications are for policy, what we might do to prevent something from this happening again in the future. When it's guns, when the killer is a shooter, the answer is --- nothing. We are told "this just happens." But if it gets put in a special category called terrorism, then the answer is, everything must be done, no cost should be spared, no legal precedent should stand in the way. Once it gets put in the terrorism bucket, we must do everything in our power. No one ever says "people are going to die from terrorism, that's just the way it is." And if it's in the gun bucket, "yeah, 30,000 people are going to die every year from guns, that's just the way it is." Why is that the case? In the last 30 years, there have been 30,000 to 40,000 gun deaths in the United States per year, more than 900,000 people. In the last 40 years since 1970, there have been about 3,400 terror-related deaths, depending how you define terror according to the integrated united states security data base. A million gun fatalities in the 33 years since 1980 versus 3,400 terror fatalities since 1970 ...

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/chris-hayes-nails-it-again-chrislhayes.html

[Bennyboy]

1. But we will say it when a Corporation kills more people

through negligent acts. The spills. the fire last night. no one will be held accountable for that and we all know that there was a knowingly violation that led to this.

We are willing to say, it's okay if you kill people with your products, that's just the way it is.

[hlthe2b]

2. Imagine the response if those Newtown childen had died at the hands of Chechnyan type terrorists...

Can anyone imagine a "well, it happens" attitude as we see from the gun-obsessed proponents?

[Demo_Chris]

3. No one? I'll say it right now...

People ARE going to die from terrorism. That's just the way it is. You cannot stop them all, even if you spend 24 hours a day thinking of nothing but this and voluntarily give away every freedom. The terrorists are spending their days looking for patterns and trying to spot weaknesses. You cannot stop them all. Nor can you stop mass-murdering sociopaths of any kind -- terrorist or random nutcase. You cannot even stop every shoplifter.

And yes, that's just the way it is.

We cannot stop bad people from doing bad things. What we can do is help when bad things happen. We have fifty million or so people without insurance, a hundred million living in poverty, one in five children without FOOD, one in ten kids without a home. Millions and millions and fucking millions of people living -- not under the IMAGINARY terror of the lightning-strike random terror attack or mass shooting -- but real terror and actual pain our society inflicts on the poor.

Some people are scared of boogymen -- that's a luxury. The poor don't waste their time with that nonsense, they are scared of the chest pain they are feeling right now, the chest pain they CANNOT get checked out because they have no money. Right now there are ten thousand woman who have discovered a lump, but their only healthcare is PRAYER. Right now there are millions of kids headed to school after sleeping in their parent's car, or a friend's floor, or a homeless shelter cot. Right now there are millions without a job who are out of time and options -- they need a miracle or they will be living on the streets.

These people need our help.

Instead we are working ourselves into a lather over feel-good anti gun regulation. Instead of talking about healthcare we are discussing background checks, instead of jobs we are talking about magazine capacity, instead of talking about the twenty-thousand homelsss people living in the city of Houston, we are debating the color of terrorist backbacks and wondering whether it was a white guy or a black guy that killed a few people. You think the homeless guy around the corner from the blast is scared of terrorists or school shooters?

It's a total disconnect. There are millions of people in this country who go to sleep every night to the music of gunfire, and who wake hungry and in pain from untreated medical conditions. Their kid's main meal is the school lunch we are talking about cutting. Those people know REAL fear. And if the NRA or some random terrorist is at the top of your priority list, you don't even begin to know what terror is.

/rant

[Fumesucker]

4. The point of the OP is that we spend hundreds of billions if not trillions on "stopping terrorism"

Why is it *so* important to stop "terrorism" but not the far greater slaughter that takes place on a daily basis in the USA?

[Demo_Chris]

5. And my point is that both miss the mark. nt

[Daemonaquila]

8. That statement misses the real point.

It's not *so* important to stop "terrorism" in the minds of political leaders. The illegal methods used to allegedly stop "terrorism" were so important to the Bush administration (and now down the line to the next administrations) as a means to create an imperial presidency and maintain control over citizens, that they were/are leveraging "terrorism" to the utmost to retain and expand them. "Terrorism" is simply the perfect excuse, and most Americans fell for it out of fear. Our government couldn't care less about terrorism, but it can't have its illegal searches, extrajudicial killing, indefinite detention, etc. without it.

On the other hand, ending gun violence has never been such a great priority, when a certain level of gun violence is so convenient in maintaining divisions within the population.

[davidn3600]

6. Actually I have seen many saying it...mainly libertarians afraid they will lose more civil liberties

[Daemonaquila]

7. Incorrect.

A lot of people say exactly that, because it's the truth - people ARE going to always die of terrorism, and that IS the way it is. Maybe in America they don't say it because they don't want to believe it (American exceptionalism and all that...), but do please ask someone from Afghanistan, India, or many other places around the world.

The only equivalence that can be reasonably argued for here is that American law enforcement is doing everything it can to prevent terror attacks by using drones, unprecedented surveillance, secret evidence, unconstitutional wiretaps, FISA warrants/courts, invasive searches on the highways/in buses and trains/in transport hubs/at large events, detention without charge, extraordinary rendition, and much more. I'm sorry, I don't want to be made "safe" from terrorism by that unlawful garbage. Sure, we could do the same regarding guns, but that's even worse because the scale would be so much more extreme. Though I hate the rhetoric of the pro-gun lobby, I'm glad that they are not giving in to the idiotic fears that caused Americans to willingly strip themselves of their rights after 9/11. I'm done with people giving up constitutional rights because it makes them feel a little safer. Regardless of the (in)validity of many of the arguments, I'll cheer on anyone who puts the brakes on when it comes to greater law enforcement and "security" intrusion.