Thursday, July 13, 2017

FACT CHECK: 94 Percent of U.S. Terrorism Fatalities Are Caused by Islamic Terrorists

FACT CHECK: 94 Percent of U.S. Terrorism Fatalities Are Caused by Islamic Terrorists

 
BY PATRICK POOLE 
LiquidLibrary
Fake statistics die as hard as fake news.
This is especially true when statistics are used to reinforce entrenched positions during highly charged political debates.
One particular false statistic -- even under the most charitable reading of the data, it's highly misleading -- is trotted out after virtually every major terrorist attack in order to claim that Islamic terrorism is a big nothingburger.
I've had to deal with various incarnations of this here before:
It goes something like this:
94% of all terror attacks are committed by non-Muslims
Another version:
Only 6% of terror attacks in the U.S. are by Muslims
And yet another (one that is flatly false, because the data cited is never broken out by sex or race) says:
94% of terror attacks are committed by white men
The data behind this statistic comes from the FBI's Terrorism 2002-2005 report. You can find it on the FBI's website here.
First thing to consider when you see this statistic bandied about: realize the data is more than a decade old.
Including the data from 2006-present will give very different results (results that purveyors of these claims may not like), but since this is the data set they choose to use, I will use their preferred source.
Second, note that this statistic is counting "incidents." The data ends up being portrayed like this:
The problem with using this standard of measure is that it is basically useless. An ecoterrorist mailbox bomb that doesn't injure or kill anyone is given the exact same weight as the Oklahoma City bombing or the 9/11 attacks. So how does measuring terrorism in this way tell you anything important?
Still, after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January 2015, Dean Obeidallah at The Daily Beast floated these numbers:
Following the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando last year that killed 49, HuffPo pushed this questionable statistic to assure us that Islamic terrorism really isn't a thing:
Arianna Huffington herself circulated the article:
As did Sally Kohn:
It also pops up at Fox News from time to time:
I observed earlier that this statistic gets used to float bogus claims that aren't even supported by the data they cite. Here's one example:
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Here's the bad news for those pushing this statistic. Again, using the exact same data comes this finding:
94% of all terrorism fatalities in the U.S. are caused by Islamic terrorists
Keep in mind that Muslims in the the U.S. represent less than one percent of the population.
So how do the numbers break down?
This graphic is taken straight from the FBI's 2005 report (p. 31). So here are some data points.
Out of the 3,178 terrorism fatalities during this period, Islamic terrorists account for 2,989 (94 percent).
All but six fatalities due to Islamic terrorism come from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks.
For comparison, the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh accounts for only 168, or 5.2 percent of, terrorism fatalities during that period.
Here's another data point from the FBI terrorism report:
Of the 14,038 injured in terror attacks, Islamic terrorism was responsible for 13,067 (93 percent).
So, to put it another way:
Islamic terrorism is responsible for 94 percent of all terror fatalities and 93 percent of all terror-related injuries.
(more at link):  https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/07/09/fact-check-94-percent-of-us-domestic-terrorism-fatalities-are-caused-by-islamic-terrorists/
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