Congratulations to Kim Kardashian
From the World Economic Forum:
Kim Kardashian is an unlikely champion of statistics, but a tweet from the reality TV star in January 2017 contained a startling figure that has been named International Statistic of the Year.
She shared a table showing a range of violent or unexpected ways people meet their deaths annually in the United States. Kardashian’s aim was to highlight how many more Americans are killed by fellow citizens with guns, than by terrorists.
The table also revealed that lawnmowers are actually more deadly than terrorists.
According to the table below, first published by the Huffington Post, an average of 69 people are killed every year in accidents involving lawnmowers. By comparison 14 people are killed each year by terrorists. The killers in this category include Muslims inspired by jihadist philosophy as well as white, far-right extremists. Both categories include American citizens.
(Clickify to embiggenize.)
The piece goes on:
This disparity between terror-related deaths and everyday accidents like falling out of bed highlight a gap between reality and people’s perceptions.
Chapman University’s 2017 Survey of American Fears reveals that 43.3% of Americans are either afraid or very afraid of a terrorist attack.
Far fewer – just 28.1% – are afraid of a random mass shooting, and just 18.3% are afraid of being murdered.
Let’s compare those fears with reality. Americans are 14,381 times more likely to be killed by a firearm held by a fellow citizen than they are to be killed in a terrorist attack.
CDC data show a total of 115,053 deaths in the US caused by firearms between 2007 and 2016, an average of 11,500 per year.
But the US isn’t the only country where there are large gaps between perception and reality.
In fact, according to Ipsos MORI’s latest Perils of Perception Index, the US has only the 15th largest perception gap in the world.
This may not be as impressive as awarding Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for accomplishing, well, um, ah… But regardless, it serves as kudos to Kim Kardashian.
That said, I find this , er, statistic to be an odd choice for praise. I assume Mrs. Kardashian and the worthies at the World Economic Forum spend more time on airplanes than the average bear, and perhaps they occasionally travel commercial. And yet, it would appear that not one of them asked himself or herself why there are lines of people waiting to walk through metal detectors and pass their luggage through security. Or why there are bollards going up in NYC. Or why intelligence agencies spend so much effort on trying to deal with terrorism.
Because if they had, they might have realized why the the death rate from Islamic terrorism is low relative to other ways to die: because we collectively put a heck of a lot of resources into preventing Islamist terrorists from killing people. I don’t know how much how much is spent preventing lawnmowers from running amok, but its got to be infinitesimal in comparison.
Furthermore, reducing these expenses can have deleterious effects. Charlie Hebdo reportedly spends a million and a half dollars a year on security; the pity is they didn’t start spending that much a few years ago. And the Merkel legos sprouting across Europe aren’t going up because people over there are concerned that the Ku Klux Klan is branching out across the waters.
Also… most people don’t quite realize for how long these expenditures have been going on, and how much effort has focused on dealing with what we now call “Islamist” terrorism. Its easy to think of 9/11. But one can go back to the 1970s and find many, many skyjackings that were precursors to 9/11. (Plus the Lod airport massacre.) That isn’t to say there wasn’t terrorism before the 1970s, but it typically had a non-Islamist motivation.
The WEF also makes the point that gun violence by other Americans causes a lot more deaths than one’s fellow Americans. That is also true, but somewhat misleading. In general, victims of gun violence are killed by people they know or consider to be their rival. There are simple ways that the average person can severely reduce their likelihood of being killed by another American with a gun, mostly in the nature of avoiding certain people, certain places, or or certain activities. That isn’t to say all victims can engage in such avoidance – children growing up in the wrong inner city, for example, often don’t have options but those are exceptions and not the rule.
On the other hand, terrorism is random, at least from the perspective of the victims. Its death toll also isn’t limited except by the competence of the terrorist. The guy who shoots his wife because he is drunk or feels wronged or whatever generally doesn’t have an interest in killing everyone on the block. But the guy who runs down a bunch of civilians, or shoots up a concert (be it in Paris or Las Vegas) would happily kill many more if given half a chance. To be precise, they would kill every single person they deem an infidel if they could. The fortunate thing is that most of them of inept. However, not all of them are.
All of which is to say, I suspect Kim Kardashian missed the point.
Update – last few paragraphs added Jan 9, 2018 at 7:32 EST.
” because we collectively put a heck of a lot of resources into preventing Islamist terrorists from killing people.”
Please demonstrate that these expenditures causally reduce risk exposures. Correlation of spend to occurrence may be more related to a significantly lower likelihood of incident than presumed as justification for the outlays.
Cover:
Welcome to Angry Bear. First time comments always go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising.
Maybe it is me, but I am thinking our judicial system does a credible job of reducing murders.
Couldn’t begin to guess at the costs.
Note that if you want to talk about gun violence you also should talk about suicides by gun which amount to twice the number of suicides. (Also more likley to be successful than other methods). If we want to talk about gun violence we need to include this statistic.
To use one example…. I mentioned skyjacking in the post. Here is something someone posted showing skyjackings per year: http://www.datagraver.com/case/airline-hijackings-1945-2015.
Now, there was a big spike in 1969, and at the same time hijackings started moving from a Monty Python joke to an event that the public started believing had a likelihood of a violent outcome. This alarmed the airlines and they began testing behavioral profiling (e.g., did a passenger pay cash, etc) that year. It was rolled out more widely in 1970. And in January of 1973, the FAA started making people pass through metal detectors and searching bags.
Leaving out the big spike in 1969, the change from 1969 to 1970 and from 1972 to 1973 are about the clearest breaks in the graph. Though of course it is possible it was all a coincidence.
EMichael,
Sure. And it isn’t free. KK can note that murders we shouldn’t worry about murders because more people die of heart disease.
Suicide is legal in the US, so why could we care if it is done with a firearm?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation
While it is legal it is still to be discouraged, since in many cases the folks involved are mentally ill. Recall that the a danger to yourself or others is grounds for institutionalization. After all if suicide were a crime short of confiscating whatever wealth what could the state do to a dead person, criminal responsibility for committing suicide can’t punish the person committing it, and it is not clear that would discourage others. But suicide also harms a lot of folks around the victim.
In addition the main reason to mention suicide and guns is that it is an additional argument for gun control.
She’s a heterosexual woman, so she has a different statistical point of view. If she wants to have sex, she has to place herself in increased danger, just as if she were spending time in a likely terrorist target area. Unfortunately, the area of increased danger is her home and could include just about anywhere she goes if she is being stalked.
A woman never knows when the trap door is going to drop out and the man in her life become a menace. If you run the numbers, this is a much more serious risk than getting blown up at an Ariana Grande concert. In contrast, a heterosexual man is extremely unlikely to be murdered by the woman in his life, so he will be more concerned with terrorism and avoid Ariana Grande concerts.
(Also, it helps to remember that a lot of misogynists have a lot of grudges, so they often don’t just kill one particular woman. They’ll often go after co-workers, children, parents and others. Many of them wind up shooting themselves, something they probably should have done first, before shooting all those other people.)
Kaleberg,
My wife once told me that when and her girlfriends were all young and single, there were some women she knew that always seemed to have drama of one sort or another in their lives, and others who had none. More recently I asked her whether the women she knew who had gotten divorced and that were also having a fair amount of their lives since were also the ones who had a lot of drama when younger, and my wife said that was the case.
This is anecdotal, but it fits my experience of both men and women. Everyone has misfortune in their life, but for some, much of that misfortune is self-inflicted. A fair number of the people who make bad choices early in their lives seem to keep making the same bad choices later.
All that is to say… as I noted in the post, most people are more concerned with random violence (including random terrorism) rather than with violence from people they know because most people aren’t able to mitigate the former through their actions, but they can mitigate the latter (if they choose).
As to Kim Kardashian, I confess to not paying much attention to her or her extended family. However, I do wait in line at the supermarket checkout stand, and I do see (however inadvertently) the cover of celebrity tabloid magazines when waiting. I have concluded, from what little I know, that the Kardashian clan seems to be in the business of selling drama, and that Kim may well be the most successful purveyor of said drama in the family. And you don’t sell drama by avoiding people, places or events where drama happens.
It is the objective of my comment to point out the specifics of Mr. Kimel’s pure and utter disregard for rational thought or analysis and by so doing showing he’s an intentional liar with an agenda (or a crazy in the alternative).
I do this in the spirit of informing the readers of AB who may not be able to recognize it.
A statistic shown by Kim Kardashian whch compares US deaths by Terrorist and Lawnmowers with deaths by firearms from others (not including gun related suicides) stated:
“Let’s compare those fears with reality. Americans are 14,381 times more likely to be killed by a firearm held by a fellow citizen than they are to be killed in a terrorist attack.
CDC data show a total of 115,053 deaths in the US caused by firearms between 2007 and 2016, an average of 11,500 per year”
Mr. Kimel authored a post on Angry Bear which, although he briefly states “it serves as kudos to Kim Kardashian” his entire post is used to ridicule it.
He asks why
– “there are lines of people waiting to walk through metal detectors & pass their luggage through security.”
– “there are bollards going up in NYC.”
– “intelligence agencies spend so much effort on trying to deal with terrorism”.
It is by these questions that he then states why
“.. the death rate of Islamic terrorism is low relative to other wsy to die beasue.. [the US] put… resources into preventing Islamic Terrorisst from killing people”
He then says “reducing [Islamic terrorists] .expenses would have a delaterious effect” , usng the 9/11 attacks as proof, and then harking back to 1970’s skyjackings [ed.which had nothing to do with Islamic Terrorists], and an Airport Massece in TelAvive in 1972 by 3 Japanese Red army members recruited by a PLO group in 1972 .. the Israeli Security forces were on the lookout for Japanese terrorists in Isreal in 1972 [ed. this was a classic terrorist attick related to the Israeli / Palestinian conflict and Jewish occupation in Palestine (cosnidered “Arab” lands by all Mddle-Eastern nations).. hence the Yom Kippur War a year later, and the 1967 war 5 years earlier.
Did anybody suggest reducing expenses on preventing Islamic Terrorists from killing people was warrented or desired? Where does this come from? Is Mr. Kimel afraid that if we were to take appropriate steps and costs to reduce US gun violence to the same level of Islamist Terrorist deaths in the US, we would have to reduce spending on Islamic Terrorst prevention costs?. But that’s not what he said. What he said was what is referred to as a “red herring” .. something having nothing to do with the subject … aka his classic mis-direction method.
After citing the 1970’s air hijackings and the attack by PLO terrorists in 1972 in Tel Aviv in ’72 as “proofs” that reducing secuirty costs would have “delaterious effect”, he then back-tracks by saying:
“… terrorism [ed. in 1970’s] typically had a non-Islamist motivation.” ‘so then why bring up the 1970’s at all? Packing it on to create FUD is a great tool.
It’s not clear whether Mr. Kimel is citing terrorism in general (citing 1970’s events), independant of Islamic Terrorism, or Islamic Terrorism in particular, as the “delaterous effect” of reducing seucirty costs and measures.
(if he’s talking about deaths by terrorism why did he not mention Dresden and Wurzburg terroriist attacks during WWII by the allies designed precisely for pure terrorism. Maybe because he thinks terrorsim is ok during declared wars, but not if the war is not a declared one, huh?)
He then makes his actual point by saying the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s citation is misleading: “[The WEF]….makes the point that gun violence by other Americans causes a lot more deaths than one’s fellow Americans”.,which he then says is “true but misleading”.
Its misleading, he says because “….victims of gun violence are killed by people they know or consider to be their rival.”
The logic he uses is that gun violence numbers of deaths in the US are over 11,000 times greater than Islamic Terrorists deaths in the US because in gun deaths are by people who know who they’re killing… while Terrorists don’t know who they’re killing ???? because they don’t know them personally? or haven’t seen them before? or don’t have a reason to kill their adversaries???
He’s not using any kind of logic at all to defend his assertion that the WEF citation on US gun violences is “misleading”. He’s just making it up to justify why gun deaths are over 11,000 times greater than deaths by Islamic Terrorists…. out of pure imaganation run wild. I have no idea why he thinks the WEF citation is misleading other than what he then says following whuch is because there are:
“….simple ways that the average person can severely reduce their likelihood of being killed by another American with a gun, mostly in the nature of avoiding certain people, certain places, or or certain activities.”
Mr. Kimel’s solution to gun deaths in the US then is just stay out of the way and don’t get involved with people who have guns. This doesn’t even pass a small test: Tell itt to the people in Las Vegas (just for the most recent of many other similar examples), or to the members of the church in Charelston, or the kids in Columbne..
This is either Mr. Kimel’s fictional make-believe imagination using Utopian idealism, OR he’s intentionally giving credence to the NRA’s perpetual propaganda “Guns don’t kill people. Peaple kills people.”. This is no different than saying “Bombs don’t kill people.” In fact it’s just another way of saying “It’s their own fault.” …the standard right wing blame rationalization for everything.
Mr Kimel then compares the US gun violence deaths to Terrorist caused deaths by using another rationalizaton that has no merit:
“…terrorism is random, …. Its death toll also isn’t limited except by the competence of the terrorist.” However all evidence globally is that terrorism deaths are very limited…. by the means they can create or which are conveniently at their disposal, and by their numbers. The by far most deaths from a single terrorsit attak anywhere on the globe was on 9/11, killing 3000 people… and the meltdown that brought down the towers wasn’t even a planned part of the attack… it was a fortuitous (for the terrorists) by-product that not even the best architects & engineers were aware could be the case until after the fact.
As to random … relative to gun deaths. Is Mr. Kimel daft, or just making things up out of whole cloth. To the people killed by guns 95% or more were random acts from the perspective of those who were killed. They were completely random in both the time domain and space domain… the where and when. They occur at a greater rate in crowded districts of some cities for their spacial distribution.. but so do terrorist acts, but they cannot be predicted in time space, nor precise locations spacially, so they are random in both domains. Mr. Kimel is just making this excuse up with and if he doesn’t know he is, then he’s definitely off his nut.
So US gun deaths aren’t random acts of violence but intentional targting of victims…. hit lists I suppose, while terrorism is a random act of violecne not intentionally targeting victims in a specific place and time
Is that what his excuse is for why terrorist caused deaths are lower than gun deaths or is that his excuse for why gun deaths are greater than terrorist deaths by 14,381 times?
And this is his “case” for why he declares the WEF citation to be “misleading”? Total and utter bullshit.
And he then ends by saying Kim Kardashian “missed the point”. The point by Mr. Kimel being that Islamic Terrorism is a greater potential cause of US citizen’s deaths than US gun violence is every day in reality… not just a “potential” cause.
Obviously Mr. Kimel doesn’t like when people point out the facts he doesn’t like, so he makes up artificial stuff out of fear that maybe people who point out the facts are placing thieir attention on the wrong priorities.. that is to say not Mr. Kimel’s preferred priorities. Gun deaths are excused because Terrorist attack potentials are a greater cause deaths …. maybe, someday,. in the future, or more likely never. Maybe the Earth will perish by a random collision with a large asteroid too… someday, maybe.
But we could add up the gun deaths in the past and meantime… before that potential from Islamic terrorist might someday be realized by Islamic Terrorists, and the number of deaths by Islamic Terrorists in the US would have be something akin to total war.
Summary: The WEF, via Kim Kardashian’s message statistics, is that gun deaths in the US are three orders of magnitude greater than the deaths by Islamic Terrorisism. Mr. Kimel calls this informatioin “misleading”, citing his own purely made-up (aka bullshit) reasons which have no merit to them what-so-ever.
These aren’t his opinions (or if they are then he’s delustional and needs psychiatric care). They are intentioal lies. Publishing them on Breitbart or Fox & Friends, or the NRA’s journal might be the appropriate venue. It’s degrading to AB.