Putting the Treat of Terror into Proper Perspective With the Day-in and Day-Out Realities of America's Own Brutal Violence - Government Exploits its Fear to Suppress Freedom

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

‘We’re Up for Several More Years of Increased Jihadi Terror in Europe’

The phrase “lone wolf” is one of the phoniest terms in use at present. It is, quite simply, a propaganda term.

It is intended to instill fear and to suggest penetration into a society of dark and sinister forces, allowing governments in turn to take extraordinary measures in surveillance and control of things like the Internet.

What we indeed have in places like London is young men desperately trying to get some kind of vengeance for what Britain has helped do to some Arabic countries, but the total of such incidents remains extremely small and warrants no extraordinary measures.

We all know that young men, even without a deep grievance, can sometimes be troublesome and violent.

In America, for example, we see case after case of young men attacking groups and people. The incidents are common, but they are not, and quite rightly so, labeled as terror.

Here is a list of recent multiple killings in the U.S., going back only two years. The list is only a tiny portion of total murders or total homicides in America:

 

San Francisco UPS shooting with 3 killed and 2 injured

Pennsylvania supermarket shooting and killing of 3

Orlando Florida shooting and killing of 5

Ohio nursing home shooting and killing of 3

Fresno downtown shooting and killing of 3

Fort Lauderdale Airport shooting with 5 killed and 6 injured

Burlington Washington mall shooting and killing of 5

Baton Rouge police shooting with 3 killed and 2 injured

Dallas police shooting with 5 killed and 11 injured

Orlando Florida nightclub shooting with 49 killed and 53 injured

Kansas Excel Industry shooting with 3 killed and 14 injured

Kalamazoo Michigan shooting and killing 6

San Bernardino shooting with 14 killed and 21 injured

Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting with 3 killed and 9 injured

Roseburg Oregon Community College shooting with 9 killed and 9 injured

Chattanooga military recruitment shooting with 5 killed and 2 injured

Charleston Church shooting with 9 killed and 1 injured

Menasha Wisconsin Bridge shooting with 3 killed and 1 injured

 

Here are a few additional interesting statistics on American day-in, day-out violence:

In just one city, the city of Chicago during 2016, 717 were shot and killed, 3662 were shot and wounded, total homicides, including without guns, were 803. Many large American cities have comparable violence.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain tracked killings by police in the U.S. for a year, such killings being very under-reported in American national crime stats: 1,146 were killed by their own police in just one year, 2015. That number compares to 55 killed in total by British police over a period of 24 years.

In another kind of under-reported death, The Huffington Post gathered statistics of more than 800 people who died in jails and police lockups in the year 2015-16.

For 2015, 38,300 people were killed on American highways. Of course, the overwhelming majority of such deaths is completely avoidable, but we do not see authorities taking measures in law to any serious extent to improve the rules and their enforcement.

Only in the area of “terror” do we see a relatively small number of deaths bringing demands for measures resembling a police state.

I think in all serious matters, where the press screams and where new demands are made by government, it is extremely important for people to have some perspective.

Death from genuine terror remains, despite all the noise, something about as common as slipping on a banana peel and dying.