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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Handguns & IRA Terrorists: Some Data
Message-ID: <29200190@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Jan-85 16:12:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.29200190
Posted: Sat Jan 19 16:12:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Jan-85 05:40:56 EST
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcs:29200190:000:1050
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Jan 19 15:12:00 1985

> Do you realize that you have a greater chance of being killed by a handgun
> in the United States than you do of being killed by terrorism in Northern
> Ireland?

I hadn't realized it because it isn't true.  It took a while to get enough
data to work out the relevant death rates, but here they are:
--------------------
| Civilian death rate from terrorist-related violence in Northern Ireland:
|     assuming all deaths occurred in Belfast:		  46.1 per 100,000
|     assuming even distribution throughout N. Ireland:	  10.7 per 100,000
|
| Death rate in the United States:
|     from all handguns, 1984:				   4.7 per 100,000
|     from murders (no suicides, accidents), 1982:	   3.7 per 100,000
--------------------
The chance of being killed with a handgun in the US is between 2 and 10
times less than the chance of being killed by terrorist-related violence in
Northern Ireland.

Sources:
    Flackes, W.D.  _Northern Ireland:  A Political Directory, 1968-79_.
    U.S. Statistical Abstract, 1984.

Scott Renner
{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!renner