According to research conducted by sociologist David Phillips, there is a significant increase the number of suicides following a widely publicized suicide. Dubbed the “Werther Effect”, these findings have apparently held up to rigorous statistical analysis.
My question is, given disturbing nature and widespread media coverage of the recent terrorist activities, should we expect “copycat” crimes in the coming weeks?
While I’m certainly no expert on terrorism, considering the heightened security, I would think any ‘logical’ terrorist (wait, isn’t that an oxymoron?) would want to create the most damage and fear possible. That said, it would make sense to attack when everything returned to normal in a few months. Attacking would mean they would be even less likely to complete their mission. Afterall, even with their ‘perfect’ planning on this one, we see that the plane going for the White House ended up at the Pentagon instead, and the one outside of Pittsburgh never made it to its destination at all…
Plus all the rules are changed. I’m sure the reason that the terrorists were so successful to begin with, considering all they had were ‘knife like devices’ was that they probably told everyone on board it was a ‘routine’ hijacking to Cuba, Central America, or some other location that would have been realistic given the fuel on board. I’m sure they were told no one would be hurt as long as everyone cooperated.
That said, imagine the same scenario happening next week. Even if some nut smuggled a gun on board, passengers would rush them and risk their life thinking they were already dead anyway. I suspect that’s what happened with the plane that crashed outside of Pittsburgh.