You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist

Without some notion of absolute numbers, the comparison is pointless.<p>Last I heard, both of those causes of death are almost negligible compared to things like heart disease, cancer, and car accidents. So I have some doubt about this statement by the author<p>&gt; The point of the quote is to focus people on sources of mortality society-wide, because this focus can guide public policy efforts at reducing death.<p>With that said, yes, people are irrationally afraid of death by terrorism. But comparing that to their chance of death by cop is not illustrative. Comparing to their chance of death by traffic accident would be more relevant.

Here is PDF original source for Author&#x27;s statistics is referencing [ <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/start/announcements/BackgroundReport_10YearsSince9_11.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.start.umd.edu&#x2F;start&#x2F;announcements&#x2F;BackgroundRepor...</a> ]. Of a particular interest is bar graph on the bottom of the second page. Ironically it comes out to about: US citizens are<p>eight and a half times<p>less likely to die due to terrorism on US soil (Before and after war on terror). That is just what statistics can do if you take any two numbers and start doing &quot;science&quot; with them. As far as I can tell the statistics author quotes actually compiled from different sources, which makes it even more questionable. I do not doubt the number provided by author is correct, however I just demonstrated that correctness is not enough, you need to treat your data and questions you ask of that data carefully in order to come up with something useful.<p>Original post below:<p>_________________________<p>There is a lie, there is a bold lie, and there is statistics.<p>These are only a few variables that might contribute to that number:<p>1. There are actually vastly more cops compared to terrorists.<p>2. Terrorists do not discriminate targets. Cops usually have a very specific set of people they are targeting (I.E. carrying guns and shooting at other people&#x2F;gangs).<p>3. How many of those people killed by cops, were trying to shoot back? Terrorists usually kill people who do not fight back.<p>I am all up for this kind of statistics, however this one seems a bit sensationalist.

Only 8?! With so many police officers? That&#x27;s an amazing performance if true. But I suspect that police-caused fatalities are just being underreported here.

I wouldn&#x27;t trust the Cato &quot;Institute&quot; with providing the result of 1 + 1, let alone a whole study.

<i>Not</i> how you estimate long-tail risks!<p>&quot;<i>The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war.</i>&quot;<p>Since 2011, there&#x27;s been no major tsunami, nuclear meltdown, or global financial crisis... so the probability of any those things happening must be zero.

Well we need to condition that probability on &quot;while you are doing something perfectly normal&quot;.

The statistical likelihood of something happening isn&#x27;t super relevant to how we as human beings deal with things. Fear is a huge motivating factor. While we do not live in a perfect world, police, by design, decrease fear while terrorists increase it. That&#x27;s why we commit money and resources.<p>A nice analogy is the difference between flying and driving. I know many people that have a fear of flying and refuse to get on a plane, but are perfectly comfortable behind the wheel even though it&#x27;s statistically much less safe. How people feel about things is important.

If everyone in the world (except say 0.0001% of people) took MMR vaccines, then you would probably be 8 times more likely to die of an MMR vaccine than Measles.<p>Does that mean everyone should stop taking the vaccine?

What is the old saying... &quot; what is the difference between lies and statistics?&quot; Lies intentionally deceive. I think there is also a statistic I saw that said that the increased hassle caused by the TSA procedures caused more people to drive than fly which ended up killing more people in traffic accidents than were killed on 911. There are a lot of statistics like that. But I think the main point is that the threat of terrorism is vastly over blown, which I think most informed people understand.

How many police officers conduct mass casualty attacks causing maximum loss of life?<p>How many terrorist atrocities are foiled, preventing statisticians from incorporating them into the sample?<p>This is the equivalent of saying &quot;You are 8 times more likely to be killed in car crash by debris than going through the windscreen.&quot;<p>Yes. Only because the seatbelt exists.<p>Similarly, the only reason terrorist deaths are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism.

&gt;<i>It’s been quickly retweeted dozens of times, indicating that the idea is interesting to many people.</i> &#x2F;&#x2F;<p>Never thought of tweets as MVPs for blog posts before.

This is an abuse of probability. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

The studies here have so many statistical problems it&#x27;s not even worth talking about. It may be true, it may be not true. You can&#x27;t just take stats from multiple sources and directly compare them without any thought. It doesn&#x27;t work that way.

This is a real-world problem. Some warrants are absolutely indistinguishable from a home invasion, and mistakes are well documented in the press (but not reported widely enough, IMO). I remember one in Denver around 2003 that particularly horrendous.

And thirty times more likely if you are a minority.

In my country (UK) I believe the chance of being killed in either way is so close to zero as being something I can entirely ignore.

The relevant xkcd: <a href="http://xkcd.com/1252/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1252&#x2F;</a>

Unless you happen to be in the same room with a police officer and terrorist.<p>Also, Domino&#x27;s pizza delivery drivers a much more considerable threat to Americans than all the terrorists in Afghanistan. You could go on all day with such comparisons. I&#x27;ll bet popcorn kills more people than Al Qaeda. And through asphyxiation!

Does that mean the police has successfully prevent terrorists to commit the killings?