Priorities

   Consider this: The number of U.S. civilians killed worldwide in terrorist attacks in all of last year -- ten. So reports the U.S. State Department. The year before, according to the Washington Post, citing State Department data, the total was 17.
   In the past six months, 4,499 Americans have been murdered in gun violence. And that number -- two weeks old -- is already exceeded.
   In 2011 alone, the number of gun homicides in America was 11,101.
   In the past 25 years, the total of terrorism-related deaths in America was 3,487, according to johnstonarchive.net. And that includes the 9/11 deaths, which accounted for most of that total.

   You are a thousand times more likely to be killed in an auto accident than from a terrorist attack. You are 33,000 times more likely to die of cancer than from terrorism.
   So why, since so many more people die of gun violence and so few from terrorism-related incidents, is so little done about guns and so much about terrorism?

   Terrorism is, by definition, a terrible thing. Violent death from any cause is a terrible thing.

   It's time to rethink priorities.