Let’s be realistic about what threatens us

People aren’t very good at assessing risk. We tend to elevate the risk of the spectacular – shark attacks – while underestimating the mundane – heart attacks.

Bees kill many more people each year than snakes. You’re more than 10 times more likely to drown in the bathtub than to die in a commercial airplane crash.

In the wake of last weekend’s horrific assault on Paris by Islamic State assassins, the level of fear of a terrorist attack undoubtedly has risen. That response seems natural and, in some respects, valid.

When more than 130 people are gunned down while enjoying a meal at a restaurant, blown up during a sporting event or summarily executed at a nightclub, we imagine that it could just as easily have happened to us. That’s the point of these attacks, to instill terror.

And the fears are justified to a degree. Attacks like that could happen in the United States again, as they did on 9/11. The Islamic State group might be able to send agents to this country to wreak havoc in one of our major cities, and we need to take steps to guard against that threat.

But perspective is crucial regarding terrorism. Just like comparing the danger of great whites vs. high cholesterol, we have to maintain a realistic view of the risk of terrorist attacks.

Experts say that the overall odds of dying in any kind of terrorist attack worldwide is 1 in 9.3 million. You are nearly 14 times more likely to die of a dog bite than that.

In theory, we could save more lives by requiring vicious dogs to wear muzzles than by beefing up anti-terrorist security. But we wouldn’t know that from listening to all the red-faced politicians frantically warning us of the dangers of allowing a few thousand Syrian refugees, many of them children, to enter this country.

A recent poll, however, indicated that Americans might not be as misguided as some of the fuming politicians in assessing real risk. A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that when it comes to danger, U.S. voters, on average, are far more afraid of gun violence than terrorism.

Overall, 63 percent of registered voters said they’re more worried that they or someone they know will be a victim of gun violence than of a terrorist attack. Only 29 percent worry more that they or a friend will be killed in a terrorist attack.

The poll, predictably, has a partisan split. Democrats fear guns over terrorism by 77 percent to 15 percent, while Republicans fear terrorism over guns by 50 percent to 45 percent.

But objective odds calculations indicate which view is more realistic. America’s National Safety Council says the odds of dying by gun violence are about one in 25,000.

That means that your chances of being shot to death still are relatively remote. You’re more likely to die from a fall or a car accident.

But clearly the risk of gun violence is immensely higher than that of a terrorist attack – which raises an obvious contradiction.

Many of those who are railing against allowing Syrian refugees into this country say they are concerned about the ability of government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security to screen the refugees, making it unsafe to let them resettle here. And yet many of those who don’t think the government can adequately vet refugees are dead set against expanding background checks for the sale of firearms.

If we’re realistic about the risk, we need to keep a closer watch on gun sales.

Since the 9/11 attacks, nearly all the fatal terrorist incidents in the U.S. have been domestic attacks, most of them perpetrated by white American men with guns. If we have anything resembling a terrorist epidemic in America, it is of high school students killing their classmates and teachers.

We need to remain vigilant against foreign-instigated terrorism. We don’t want to see what happened in Paris happen here or anywhere else if we can prevent it.

But we also need to guard against domestic terrorism and gun violence, which includes finding more effective ways to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

And we should assess the danger realistically. We need to battle terrorists, but we don’t need to sacrifice our common sense or compassion in the process.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Let’s be realistic about what threatens us."