Truth vs. Reality: Terror Edition
If you ask people in the US which group(s) did the most terror attacks, chances are you will hear “Muslims” as an answer. You hear and read about them doing terror attacks so often, so they must be number one in terror, right?
For many people this is the truth. Unfortunately for us all it is not the reality.
According to reality Muslims only commit half as many terror attacks as the groups that fear them the most: white and right-wings.
Or in other words: You are more likely to be terror-killed by your Muslim-hating comrade than by a Muslim terrorist.
The reason why many people have the misconception that there are so many Muslim terrorists is simply the media.
Between 2006 and 2015 the average Muslim terror attack got 105 headlines. Terror attacks by other groups just 15 headlines. This difference of one middle zero means that a Muslim gets 357% more media attention than other people.
Or to view it from the other side: for every Muslim terror you read about, there are four terror attacks by other groups you do not read about. No wonder that truth and reality don’t match!
yeah right, there are loads of terror attacks by white guys but the media ignores them! Who can forget when white guys did 9/11? Or did your numbers choose to exclude 9/11?
Anyway, do you think a single attack could change those numbers? So going back to 2000 it would maybe not 357% more but only 351%?
If you doubt the number, you can always look into the source that is linked. here:
https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/downloads/Codebook.pdf
and here you can search for yourself:
http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/
hold on, is the idea that the number of attacks, is more important than the number of casualties?
That tool is hilarious, note how the vast majority of their terrorist attacks have ZERO injuries or fatalities, that's how they came up with a number where white guys committed more attacks, by counting things that were not attacks.
http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?expanded=no&casualties_type=b&casualties_max=&start_yearonly=2015&end_yearonly=2016&dtp2=all&success=yes&country=217&ob=GTDID&od=desc&page=1&count=100#results-table
75 fatalities from Muslim extremists and jihadists on that list, you tell me how many fatalities from right wing extremists.
Of course it depends on the time you are looking. FOr example here a "nice" ping pong
201602280069 2016-02-28 United States Lake Los Angeles White extremists (suspected) 0 3 Private Citizens & Property
201602180063 2016-02-18 United States Nashville White extremists 0 1 Private Citizens & Property
201602110023 2016-02-11 United States Columbus Muslim extremists 1 4 Business
201601150040 2016-01-15 United States New York City Anti-Muslim extremists 0 1 Private Citizens & Property
201601070024 2016-01-07 United States Philadelphia Jihadi-inspired extremists 0 2 Police
so lets add up that one then:
Muslim extremists one fatality, all others Zero fatalities from your list.
In any data set the claim falls apart when you look at fatal attacks rather than including attacks where no one is killed, spectacularly.
Looking again at the most recent year of data for the us we have
75 killed by Muslim extremists and jihadists and 9 killed by a white extremist.
And your point is?
That Muslim terrorists kill people? Duh.
They still get unproportionately more headlines per death then other groups.
btw:: US terror in other countries (drone strikes in Afghanistan for example) kill more civilists per year then terrorists (from all sides) kill in the US.
If you make dick comparisons, then do them right!
yes lets look at the "other groups" from the same most recent year of data we see that anti white and anti police groups killed 13. They get the least amount of press why is that?
Why haven't I heard anything about this terror attack?
The topic is the attention, based on the numbers of headlines.
This is not about "importance" based on casualities.
The study (that unfortunately you cannot look until it is published) did control for fatalities.
They use the internationally accepted definition.
So yes, pointing a gun at someone and saying "I will kill you" and meaning that is a "real attack".
actually they say one of the reasons their tool lets you choose so many parameters is because no one really agrees on what constitutes a terror attack.
If we consider attacks where there were actual fatalities then it also makes no sense to claim that there is less coverage of white radical terrorist attacks, I challenge you to find a Jihadist or Radical Muslim attack that got as much press as the Charleston shooting during that period.
Right, to some people, but expecting that to get the same amount of press as 50 people being killed is foolish.
That would include almost any demonstration that AntiFa attends. And while AntiFa members are often white they aren't right wing.
By the above definition the attacker would need to state a political or religious goal as well.
I can already hear them crying, cause it cannot be what cannot be! It must be the Muslim, or at least a black guy!
Here is another this-cannot-be, fresh from the printers of reality:
https://steemit.com/life/@lennstar/unintended-consequences-rich-guy-s-think-tank-shows-socialized-medicine-is-cheaper-and-more-effective
in fact this claim "You are more likely to be terror-killed by your Muslim-hating comrade than by a Muslim terrorist."
Is false.
anti muslim extremists killed 3 in the most recent year of data and Muslim extremists and jihadists killed 75.
http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=1&casualties_type=b&casualties_max=&start_yearonly=2015&end_yearonly=2016&dtp2=all&country=217&count=100&expanded=no&charttype=line&chart=overtime&ob=GTDID&od=desc#results-table
But you would need to compare that with how many members of that group are in that society.