Strangelove wrote: Downplaying...
If anyone is downplaying something, it is you, doc, who keeps trying to pretend like there was no terrorism in Europe in the 70's.
And when specifically talking about The Troubles, you refuse to include the 1060 military or police that were killed by terrorists as well as all the civilians killed by any other group than the Provisional IRA. Admittedly the main terrorist group in the UK at that time, but there were at least nine others, and the protestant terrorist groups killed far more civilians than the catholic ones. Your figure of 600 casualties is ridiculously low, as most serious sources state something between 3500 and 3800, with more than half of the victims being civilians.
Anyway, if I really wanted to downplay the terrorism, it would be easy to point out that the number of people killed by terrorists in the EU, even in the years that it reaches more than a hundred victims, is only a fraction of the total homicide number, which in 2014 was 4379, which in turn is dwarfed compared to the 15696 or so in the USA in 2015. Thank God for sensible gun laws!
When you take in account that the EU has some 510 miljon citizens, compared to the 330 or so for the USA, the difference becomes even more staggering.
How many shootings were there in the USA today? I think I'd rather take my chances here in Europe.




