...Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America's 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.
So do these numbers comfort you? If not, that's a problem. Already, security measures?pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards?increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It's easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place?to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the "tools" they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty. As President Franklin Roosevelt in his first inaugural speech said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself? nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter?because it doesn't really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized.
Regarding commercial flights, I think to get that level of risk of dying, one would actually have to fly once a week. I doubt the average American flies more than one round trip flight per year, so the chances would be much, much less. than one in 135K.
It is much more likely that the terrorists would shut down America through the internet, rather than some physical attack on our persons or buildings.