The Economist has rather a good point, as is frequently the case: "In 1990 there were 2,290 murders in [New York City]; last year there were 566. Thus even if a September 11th were to occur every other year, the city would by one measure be quite a lot safer than it would be with crime at its 1990 level and no terrorism."
(via Dan Drezner)
This is nonsense because it is not information that has any application: it’s a ‘so what’. Unless you can show a link between the murder rate (excluding terrorism) and instances of terrorism, this is just somebody having fun with stats.
On the contrary, the point is "if you’re afraid of being blown up by terrorists (and you’re not an Iraqi politician) then you’re a paranoid fool".
This is a trick statistic; it’s possible to play similar fun and games with UK numbers as long as you cherry pick your base years and know a bit about the timing of drug wars. In other words, the murder rate for people not associated with the crack cocaine production & distribution industry has not shown anything like the same trend.
(The best example of this kind of business was the sorts of things Americans used to say about the "effect" of the post-Dunblane handgun ban, utilising the substantial wedge in mid-1990s UK between the gun murder rate for people who weren’t associates of Curtis Warren and the gun murder rate for people who were)
I did try and do some analysis last year splitting murder rates into "self-inflicted" (broadly, being involved with the crack industry) and "not-self-inflicted" (others) components, but gave up because it looked like it was going to take far too long for something I wasn’t being paid to do…
I agree with the paranoid fool business, but we’ll have to agree to disagree on whether these stats prove that.
As a kid in London from the mid-1970s to the mid-80s I spent my school holidays wondering around the West End. This was the height of the IRA’s campaign and when they bombed the then GPO Tower (now BT Tower) restaurant rubble fell on the roof of my parents office. Other famous bombs included the Oxford Street Wimpy which exploded during a live news broadcast killing the bomb squad guy who’d been working on it for hours.
Yet nobody ever suggested I was at risk and I don’t recall anybody showing any fear, which makes me think (much though I love America) that hysteria is a transatlantic import.
The Economist is right to say that by one measure the city would be safer. The thing is, it’s not a measure ever used by anyone. Our perception of what is "safe" is shaped by more than the laws of probability, and rightly so. There are all sorts of factors of terrorist attacks that make them inherently less safe than being murdered by your brother or killed in a drug deal gone wrong or whatever, even if the end result – your death – is the same.
Stephen,
Your observation about the IRA campaigns could also show that Americans have higher standards than we do when it comes to the level of security they expect in their society. This would also be borne out by the British Government’s appallingly lax attitude to IRA violence: "Well, it’s only killing a few people, and they’re mostly Irish, so let’s leave it for the next Parliament to sort out."
I also have to say that a lot of people who didn’t show fear certainly felt it.
So, Squander Two, I could paraphrase and say that terrorist attacks are more serious than murder because they affect businessmen and not poor people who might or might not be drug dealers. I presume you wouldn’t have a problem if Bin Laden was only going after black New Yorkers from broken homes, yes?
The US government’s attitude to gun crime: "Well, it’s only killing a few people, and they’re mostly colored, so let’s leave it for the next Senate to sort out."
Matt,
You are tiresome.
> … because they affect businessmen and not poor people who might or might not be drug dealers …
Blimey, is that what I said? Gosh. That’ll teach me to assume that what I’m implying is so gut-numbingly obvious that I don’t need to painstakingly spell it out for the people who don’t know what "anyone" means.
The reason people feel less safe when the danger of terrorist attacks exist is to do with predictability and control. Driving a car may be dangerous, but I can choose to drive more slowly, avoid certain roads, not drive when drunk or tired, and, of course, I know I’m not going to be in a car crash while I’m at home watching TV or in bed. Similarly, knowing that drug dealers are dangerous people to be around, I can choose to avoid them. Such reasoning does not apply to terrorist attacks. That’s why their threat feels so dangerous to people: their unavoidableness.
If you can bear to leave the sollace of the quads, why don’t you come over to Northern Ireland and try telling people here that terrorism doesn’t affect poor people?