Poll to come…
Title was the topic of a recent MSNBC poll. National poll results spoilered.
Terrorism - 36%
Gun Violence - 31%
Police Brutality - 17%
Other - 16%
Aren’t all three of those like dying in a plane crash - commonly feared but highly unlikely?
None of them. Why worry? Fear of any of those accomplishes precisely nothing.
There’s such a low risk of any of them here, I’m not really worried at all. They don’t seem inevitable or imminent in my mind. I mean each one would suck when they happen, and we’re not immune, gun violence and Police brutality does happen here in Australia, it’s just rare and isolated enough, they’re not something that preys on my mind.
Terrorist acts haven’t happened here at all, I don’t think. Maybe we’re due.
I’m also becoming very pragmatic about my own death. I kind of don’t care all that much.
Probably my biggest fear is being killed in a car accident caused by bad weather or a house fire. Both of these are hundreds of times more likely to harm me than terrorism, gun violence, or police brutality.
Money.
I don’t even think about the three listed.
The chances of any random person being where a terror attack occurs are pretty damn low. The chances of a weird duck like ME being where a terror attack occurs is tiny fraction of that.
The chances of me doing anything that would get me involved with the police is pretty damn low. The chances of that interaction being about anything serious is even lower. The chances of me doing anything remotely stupid enough to piss off even the most asshole cop out there is damn close to zero.
And while the chances are still pretty damn low, the most likely of the bunch is a home invasion with armed thugs or being at the 7-11 right when an armed robbery occurs.
My fear is dying from some crazy, stupid, out of the blue thing. I have a tendency to put a guitar pick between my lips when I’m playing guitar. I often think one of these days I’m going to inhale one of those stupid things and choke to death.
That said, of the three listed choices that aren’t “other”, I picked terrorism.
None of three are on the top of my list, which is mostly health problems and car crashes.
But of the three, I’d choose gun violence. Mostly I worry about some kind of “toddler finds a gun” accident, but this also isn’t the safest city and in addition to ordinary crime we’ve had a few mass shootings.
Terrorism does cross my mind, but only because my workday takes me to a lot of places that are obvious targets.
Of the three, the only one that I give much thought to is gun violence. Every time there’s a mass workplace shooting, I think of my own workplace and all the undercover nutjobs I might be obliviously working with.
But I’m not really worried about it happening. I guess it hasn’t “hit home” yet for me as a real threat.
I picked terrorism.
I’d have been a lot more likely to pick Police Brutality if I were non-white, and, for that matter, non-female (and maybe even less law-abiding).
I’m concerned about gun violence mostly in the abstract-- I fear that many people are acquiring guns in a futile attempt to feel safer/more in control of their surroundings, and some of them may not take appropriate care around their guns/the availability of guns may make certain kinds of violent response to situations more common . . .
I don’t think terrorism is likely to directly affect me, and I agree with those who suggest that there are more urgent things to worry about , but of the poll options, terrorism is the one I worry about most.
I’m with you on this. I knit while riding in my car with DH driving; I use steel double-pointed needles. I fully expect to die when the airbag activates and drives one of them into my throat.
Of the three*, gun violence. Like others have said, if I was non-white and non-female (and non-middle aged) I would be more worried about police brutality. Personally, gun violence is the most likely to affect me.
I’m most worried about police brutality as it affects my community, but it’s only a slight edge on gun violence, and the two are inextricably linked. Right now, police brutality has the edge because it’s tearing the city apart, and likely to be the trigger for some Bad Stuff in the next few months.
What can I say? I live in Chicago. I work in those neighborhoods you read about. I don’t have a single patient who hasn’t lost a family member to gun violence. I’m, personally, at risk from stray bullets every day I go to work more than I’m at risk from terrorism or police brutality.
*Really, my *biggest *worry is money, but “Other” makes the poll boring.
I fear getting mugged about a thousand times more then those three and even that only crosses my mind once a week at max.
Yeah, this.
I’ve lived in NYC since the early '80s, and went through a harrowing 9/11/2001. A neighboring family pulled up stakes and went back to Wisconsin. They’re more likely to die in a horrifying bratwurst accident than I am to get killed by terrorism, gunplay, or police violence.
Just violence in general for me. That I have no doubt I will face again several times in the course of my life; that it will be at gunpoint is far less certain.
None of them.
I voted for Other - Donald Trump
Guns. Some years ago, when I was working at a largish company, there was a nasty shooting at a nearby workplace. I was part of the redesign of our workplace to establish extra escape routes in case of a nutbag with a gun. (Also a good idea for fire safety.)
I’ve also lived places where I could hear gunfire in the night, at least once a week. (I moved!)
I don’t quite understand the poll. Do you mean of those three things, which are we most worried about? Because I would be surprised to find more that a tiny fraction of the population actually worried, on a day to day basis, about any of those three things. Those people would be ignorant of the statistical likelihood of ever encountering any of those three things, which approach zero for most people. The three items in the poll don’t even scratch my worry meter. For me, automobile/scooter accident is my top worry, followed by health problems and money, in that order.