Yesterday, Congressman George Holding strode up to the podium at the center of the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and suggested that his colleagues are telling a bunch of lies about terrorism.
“We must be honest about the evolving terror threat in front of us,” said Representative Holding, and described an “increasing threat our nation faces from terrorism”.
Could George Holding be right? Is the U.S. Congress underestimating the threat from terrorism to the United States? How can we tell?
Oh, wait. Let’s look at the facts.
The facts are that the number of terrorist attacks in the United States are at an historically low level. The following chart shows the annual number of terrorist attacks over the last two decades. Terrorist attacks included in these statistics include a wide variety of things, such as cattle ranchers shooting their guns at government agents, neo-Nazi attacks against African-Americans, and property damage against businesses by anarchists.
As this chart clearly shows, the United States is not facing an increasing threat from terrorism. The blue best fit line actually shows a trend of a decrease in the number of terrorist attacks over the years.
How much do you want to bet that George Holding didn’t bother to check these facts before he wrote his little speech of outrage?