DAVID SHIVERS: Columnist is trying to fuel fear of terrorist attacks

Susan Stamper Brown’s column Tuesday (“Americans Unsafe From Terrorism) is disingenuous in its attempt to fuel fear of terror attacks by immigrants and scapegoat President Obama’s immigration policies in the wake of the Syrian civil war. I think a little perspective is in order.

She cites the stabbing rampage by the Somali immigrant at Ohio State. College campuses and their surrounds are inherently more dangerous to students than terrorists. Brown conveniently ignores rape, hazing, robbery, irresponsible drinking, etc., hazards present long before potential terror by immigrants ever became an issue.

An average of 80 people per day in this country die from car crashes. In 2014 there more than 30,000 fatal crashes in the U.S., according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Has Ms. Brown ever written about that? Or how about the 3,240 deaths in fires in 2013, per FEMA statistics. Granted, that’s on a par with the immediate casualties on 9/11, but nothing remotely like that since.

The average American’s chances of dying in a terror attack are infinitely lower than in a car accident, a fire, or even by illness, excessive alcohol consumption, or even an accident in the home. The Centers for Disease Control says Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than from terrorism.

Consider two possibilities of Ms. Brown’s goals for this column: She is terrified and wants company as she hides under her bed; or she has an ideology-related agenda that will be aided by Americans’ surrender to fear. In either case, she is helping ISIS and al-Qaeda to achieve their goal.

DAVID SHIVERS

Sasser