In my first comment I wasn't talking about safety, I was talking specifically about deterrence. In my second comment, I was doing a poor job of getting to the part where you need to get the populace on board to drive this. This is why the magnitude of the incident is important. People are much, much more interested in stopping the bomber who injures 130 than the driver who flees an accident. Maybe it's not rational, maybe proportionality can be called into question, but the whole damn world was on board for catching these two men.

I was trying to avoid typing an essay on a subject I can't write a good essay about, but to try and keep things short my theory is that terrorists evoke an unusually strong response because it feels more personal, for a number of reasons. The first that I always think about is the magnification through social connections. Those 130+ people probably have at least 5 family members, 5 friends, and 5 co-workers each. So we've got at least 2,000 people who feel directly impacted- someone they know was personally hurt. Fan that out to only one more degree, and you've got 30,000 people who know somebody whose friend was injured.

Summary: You've got to get the people on-board to make such an effort. Terrorism can get people on-board like nothing else, aside from open war.

Friends and family I've lost to:

- vehicle accidents: 4

- terrorism: 0

But that's not really the issue.

If you believe that this was a matter of community cohesion -- of a society being strengthened by the annealing blows of terrorists incidents -- then I'd concede your point. But, judging from earlier experience, something else is happening. A climate of fear is being generated that is vastly disproportionate to the objective risks.

Remember: the people at the marathon were not the target. That was just a means to an end. The real target was the American psyche. Did they succeed?

Or, since you started by talking about deterrence, let's look at it through the eyes of potential future terrorists. What are they thinking right now? Are they thinking, "Oh no. Those guys got caught. I guess I'd better not try anything like that." Or are they thinking, "OMG they shut down the whole city. We got the attention of the whole damn WORLD! AWESOME!"

"Cohesion" is a nice way to sum up what I was attempting to get to.

As for potential terrorists, I guess I still struggle with what their goals are. I think a lot of people are way off the mark. How many terrorists celebrate that Americans take off their shoes at the airport? Many people seem to think terrorist ballads must be written about American Shoe Removal, but I personally don't think they give a crap.

As for simply giving the event attention, I don't think there's any way around that. People hate it when the government tries to hide things. Now, villain-worshipping the two men (comparing how their "score" compares to other attacks, etc) is certainly a terrible idea, but I am hoping we won't go there this time.

> As for potential terrorists, I guess I still struggle with what their goals are. I think a lot of people are way off the mark.

Hmm. You're right

The grievances that drive terrorism are well understood. But beyond that I'm making confident assumptions that, on examination, I can't back up with any solid evidence or experience. I guess this is a case of "more research is needed".

> As for simply giving the event attention, I don't think there's any way around that.

You're right, of course, but I'll continue to rant about it.

If traffic accidents received anything like the attention that terrorism did -- if videos of fatal car crashes were replayed ad nauseum on the nightly news -- maybe some of those 4 people I mentioned above might still be alive today.