New Gallup Poll: Can Our Government Protect Us From Terrorist Attacks?

While Europe deals with some form of terrorism on a fairly regular basis, unfortunately, Americans are feeling pretty confident that we won’t have to deal with the same threats.

A recent Gallup poll addressed the topic of terrorism in America, and it measured a high degree of confidence in the government to handle any threats.

Seventy percent of those polled expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in our government to keep us safe from terrorist attacks.

I’m just going to go ahead and toss in there that our Second Amendment gives us a certain layer of protection, as well, but that’s for another poll, I suppose.

The new score is the first Gallup poll to measure American’s faith in the federal government’s ability to protect them from such attacks since President Trump took office.

The poll, conducted on June 7-11, comes shortly after two terror-related attacks took place in the United Kingdom in May and June.

Confidence in the U.S. government tends to fluctuate depending on domestic terror attacks, Gallup’s past polls indicate.

Following the September 11 terrorist attack in 2001, trust remained high. But after the San Bernardino attack in 2015, trust in the government fell to a record low. It has slowly risen since then.

Trump’s tough talk on terrorism may bolster that confidence.

Only 42 percent of Americans feel that they’ll be victims of a terror attack.

Interestingly, the fear of terrorists actually making an attempt against America soon is quite high.

However, 60 percent expect a terror attack is either “very” or “somewhat likely” to occur in the next several weeks, the new poll reveals. This sentiment tends to be greater following a recent terrorist attack, and lower when there is not a recent act of terror.

So it would appear that while Americans expect our government to be on top of any threats, there is still a real fear of being targeted.

I tend to agree, actually. I agree, and I think if our government let us know just how many attacks or planned attacks they regularly thwart, those poll numbers might be quite different.

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