Via a friend, this article on Wired News titled “One Million Ways to Die“:
But despite the never-ending litany of warnings and endless stories of half-baked plots foiled, how likely are you, statistically speaking, to die from a terrorist attack?
Comparing official mortality data with the number of Americans who have been killed inside the United States by terrorism since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma reveals that scores of threats are far more likely to kill an American than any terrorist — at least, statistically speaking.
In fact, your appendix is more likely to kill you than al-Qaida is.
No shit. Mine already tried. Ripped the sucker right out, I did.
I love the threat chart they provide to illustrate stuff you should probably worry about more than terrorism:
| S E V E R E Driving off the road: 254,419 Falling: 146,542 Accidental poisoning: 140,327 |
| H I G H Dying from work: 59,730 Walking down the street: 52,000. Accidentally drowning: 38,302 |
| E L E V A T E D Killed by the flu: 19,415 Dying from a hernia: 16,742 |
| G U A R D E D Accidental firing of a gun: 8,536 Electrocution: 5,171 |
| L O W Being shot by law enforcement: 3,949 Terrorism: 3147 Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554 |
I think “Dying from work: 59,730” as a high threat is my very favorite statistic.
I’m still reading Freakonomics and am currently reading the section that talks about how a child is more likely to drown in the backyard swimming pool than from guns or whatever.
Anyway, this just reminded me of that.
🙂