December 29, 2015

We Are Astonishingly Safe From Terrorism

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Steven Rattner has collected 10 charts to describe 2015, but the most interesting one is actually for 2014: It shows terrorist deaths in Western nations versus the rest of the world. For all the fear that terrorism inspires in us, the entire Western world accounted for only 0.1 percent of all terror fatalities in 2014.

That number will go up in 2015, thanks to Paris and San Bernardino, but will still be no more than about 0.5 percent. Bottom line: Don’t listen to Donald Trump. Over the last 15 years, those of us who live in rich countries have been astonishingly safe from terrorists.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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