In light of the horrific weekend in Paris and Beirut, here are some interesting statistics and some articles on terrorism.
Children dying from hunger/poor nutrition/water-related issues: on average 1 child dies every 10 seconds, all day, everyday or 3,000,000 per year
In Canada, the 2015 projections indicate that 214 people will die of cancer everyday or 100,740 this year
In the U.S., in 2012, alcohol-impaired driving crashes killed 28 people everyday or 10, 322 in total
Gun related homicides in the US average 9 people per day or 3348 per year
Terrorism is defined as attacks by non-state actors for political or other unknown motives. There were 39 countries where terrorism occurred in 2015. The 4 “Western” countries are in bold. There were 289 attacks up to and including November 13. In the 289 attacks a total of 2332 to 4332 people were killed. This discrepancy is because although there were 100 fatalities, caused by the Boko Haram when they opened fire on northern Nigerian village, there are up to 2000 are missing.
| Afghanistan | Iraq | Philippines |
| Australia | Islamic State | Republic of Macedonia |
| Bahrain | Israel | Saudi Arabia |
| Bangladesh | Japan | Somalia |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Kenya | South Korea |
| Cameroon | Kuwait | Syria |
| Chad | Lebanon | Thailand |
| China | Libya | Tunisia |
| Denmark | Mali | Turkey |
| Egypt | Niger | Ukraine |
| France | Nigeria | United States* |
| Germany | Pakistan | West Bank |
| India | Yemen |
*The attacks in the US were the mass killings in Charleston and a killing at a free speech conference.
And now for something completely different.
The Return of The Shoe Blog
This is actually a wine bottle holder.
The Gwynne Dyer article was excellent. Thanks for sharing Geoff.
Some stats I have recently heard about gun death in the US:
Total gun deaths per year = 30,000, consisting of the following:
Total gun deaths by someone shooting someone else or accidents per year = 10,000.
SUICIDES BY GUN per year = 20,000.
Also, I think the alcohol related driving deaths stat understates the larger problem. Total traffic fatalities in the US per year = approx. 30,000.
A final thought: The terrorism fatality numbers may be smaller, but they are more terrifying because of the randomness of terrorist action combined with the knowledge that those terrorists are pro-actively out to get any or all of us. In other words, I have a target on my back, and so do you…statistical significance or not. Could be any time, anywhere. Even though the statistics are gloomier, I generally don’t feel like I have a target on my back when I drive, or even when I contemplate the idea that the guy in the car next to me likely has a gun in his glove box, considering that I live in Florida.