COLUMBUS – You may die in a car crash. You could draw your last breath with a misguided bite of meat or drown in a bathtub. Or you might avoid all of that and die some other way.
But you still probably won’t meet your end in a terrorist attack in the United States.
John Mueller wants you to know this. He wants everyone to know this. The Ohio State University political-science professor has devoted much of his career over the past decade to spreading the word that American fear of terrorism is overblown and our government is spending vast amounts of money on counterterrorism efforts that, in some cases, accomplish nothing.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
Consider this: Your odds of dying in a terrorist attack are 1 in 40 million, Mueller says. Take out the 9/11 attack, and the odds are 1 in 110 million.
Meanwhile, 1 in about 8,200 Americans will die driving a car this year.
“It’s bad statistics,” Mueller said. Being afraid of dying in a terrorist attack “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
But tell that to the folks panicking over TV images of bodies being dragged from a building in San Bernardino, Calif.
Critics of death-odds comparisons say they don’t take into account how strongly a terrorist attack shakes society. People don’t get so worked up when someone chokes on a piece of steak.
During a visit to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia Thursday, President Barack Obama said Americans should be vigilant this holiday season, but he also says intelligence and counterterrorism officials have received no specific, credible information suggesting a potential terrorist attack against the United States.