Threat overblown: there’s too much talk of terrorism in the media

by David Kavanagh

More so than before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, media reporting around the world has become unnervingly inundated with stories concerning terrorism and the groups that perpetrate terrorist violence.

In fact, the amount of media coverage given to terrorist activities on a daily basis far outweighs that given to other arguably pressing issues such as climate change and extreme poverty.

In the US specifically, terrorism has taken over cable news, with CNN reportedly mentioning “terrorism” and “ISIS” a combined 831 times between November 21 and December 21 in 2015.

By comparison, in that same period, CNN discussed “climate change” 135 times, “poverty” a mere 34 times, and “CISA”, a contentious piece of anti-privacy legislation of import at the time not at all.

The danger posed by ISIS has been blown far out of proportion by the world media. Source: CNN

In an interview with NPR, US President Barack Obama accused notorious (and also over-reported on) billionaire businessman turned Republican candidate Donald Trump of exploiting blue-collar fears and concerns about Islamic State, and said that the media wasn’t helping either.

“If you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you,” he said.

This is a continuing reality, not only in the US but around the globe, despite the fact that terrorism is not actually as much of a threat as the media leads the public to believe.

An ABC chart combining statistics from the Global Terrorism Database and the Gun Violence Archive shows that while terrorism has resulted in 3521 US deaths in the over forty-year period between 1970 and 2014 (including 9/11 – which accounts for 2996 of these), gun-related violence in America killed at least 9940 people in 2015 alone.

In a speech following a mass shooting in Oregon last October, President Obama said the attention given to terrorism over other issues is substantially skewed.

“We spend over $1 trillion and pass countless laws and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil — and rightfully so — and yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths,” he said.

Visibly upset, President Obama makes a speech following a shooting that killed 13 at a community college in Oregon. October 2015. Source: Kevin Lamarque/ Reuters

“How can that be?”

Furthermore, most of the deaths that do occur as a result of terrorism around the world occur in non-OECD or third world countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria.

According to a 2015 report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, since 2000, less than 3% of terrorism-related deaths occurred in Western countries.

Even so, anti-Islamic sentiments – taking the form of threats and violence against Muslims all around the world – and fear about the possibility of Islamic State terror attacks in the West dominate public debate.

Globally, these fears have in turn led to the adoption of different pieces of legislation that although intended to protect the interests of National Security, are seen by some as threats to civil rights and freedoms.

We are forced to wonder whether it really is necessary for the mass media to report on terrorism as much as it does.

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EU gun controls to tighten in wake of Paris Attacks

by David Kavanagh

The European Commission has today adopted a list of measures aimed at strengthening the control of firearms across the European Union.

This comes days following an attack by IS-affiliated extremists in Paris that left at least 129 people dead and hundreds more injured.

The package will see the implementation of regulations designed to make it more difficult to acquire firearms, especially certain semi-automatic guns, and easier to track the movement of weapons already in legal circulation throughout the region.

Further provisions aim at both ensuring deactivated weapons are made inoperable and strengthening gun control cooperation between EU states generally.

A man is detained by police following a raid in Toulouse on Monday. Source: AP

“The recent terrorist attacks on Europe’s people and values were coordinated across borders, showing that we must work together to resist these threats,” said President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Today’s proposal… will help us tackle the threat of weapons falling into the hands of terrorists,” he said.

The European Commission is also currently developing an action plan specifically targeting the illegal trafficking of weapons and explosives throughout the EU.

Issues it will focus on include the purchasing of weapons on black markets, the control of illegal weapons, especially from Balkan countries or ex-war zones, in EU internal markets, and the cross-border battle against organised crime.

Despite France’s stringent laws outlawing most forms of gun ownership, the eight assailants directly responsible for Friday’s violence used both explosives and Kalashnikovs.

On the day following, police found a Belgian-plated car containing a further three assault rifles, five full bullet magazines and 11 empty ones.

Investigators towed the black Seat in which multiple Kalashnikov assault rifles were found. Source: BBC

According to figures from the Paris-based National Observatory for Delinquency and an Al Jazeera report, the number of illegal guns entering France has swollen drastically over the past few years.

French police seized over 2,700 unregistered weapons in 2010, compared to more than 1,500 the year before.

Speculation suggests many of these weapons are brought into the country through Eastern Europe, where the trafficking of deadly arms is big business and authorities have a harder time intervening.

In the weeks following the murder of 12 people at the offices of French satirical Charlie Hebdo in Paris last January, head of the French police union UNSA said: “the French black market for weapons has been inundated with Eastern European war artillery and arms.”

Around the same time, Europol Chief of Staff Brian Donald voiced concerns that the continent may be receiving an influx of firearms from countries in North Africa feeling the effects of Arab Spring revolutions.

Donald told TIME Magazine that in an effort to test how easy it was to attain illegal arms, young police recruits with little experience were tasked with trying to find weapons on the streets from illegal arms dealers.

“One came back two hours later with an AK-47 he bought… for 1000 [Euro],” he said.

The already proposed amendments will need approval from the European Parliament and Council before they can come into effect.

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