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<div class="">July 3, 2013</div>
<h1>How Could We Blow This One?</h1>
<h6 class="">By
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<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF"><span>NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
I just finished a five-month leave from this column, writing a book with
my wife, Sheryl WuDunn, and what struck me while away from the daily
fray is a paradox that doesn’t seem quite patriotic enough for July
Fourth. </p>
<p>
But I’ll share it anyway: On security issues, we Americans need a
rebalancing. We appear willing to bear any burden, pay any price, to
confound the kind of terrorists who shout “Allahu akbar” (“God is
great”) and plant bombs, while unwilling to take the slightest step to
curb a different kind of terrorism — mundane gun violence in classrooms,
cinemas and inner cities that claims 1,200 times as many American
lives. </p>
<p>
When I began my book leave, it seemed likely that the massacre at Sandy
Hook Elementary School in Connecticut would impel Congress to approve
universal background checks for gun purchases. It looked as if we might
follow Australia, which responded to a 1996 gun massacre by imposing
restrictions that have resulted in not a single mass shooting there
since. </p>
<p>
Alas, I was naïve. Despite <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1877">91 percent support</a>
from voters polled in late March and early April, Congress rejected
background checks. Political momentum to reduce gun killings has now
faded — until the next such slaughter. </p>
<p>
Meanwhile, our national leaders have been in a tizzy over <a title="A Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us/former-cia-worker-says-he-leaked-surveillance-data.html">Edward Snowden and his leaks</a>
about National Security Agency surveillance of — of, well, just about
everything. The public reaction has been a shrug: Most people don’t like
surveillance, but they seem willing to accept it and much more as the
price of suppressing terrorism. </p>
<p>
Our response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and international
terrorism has been remarkable, including an intelligence apparatus in
which some 1.4 million people (including, until recently, Snowden) hold
“top secret” clearances. </p>
<p>
That’s more than twice the population of the District of Columbia. <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/">The Washington Post has reported</a>
that since 9/11, the United States has built new intelligence complexes
equivalent in office space to 22 United States Capitol buildings.
</p>
<p>
All told, since 9/11, the United States has spent $8 trillion on the military and homeland security, <a href="http://nationalpriorities.org/blog/2011/08/16/How-Safe-Are-You/">according to the National Priorities Project</a>, a research group that works for budget transparency. That’s nearly $70,000 per American household. </p>
<p>
Some of that money probably helped avert other terrorist attacks
(although some of it spent in Iraq and Afghanistan may have increased
risks). We need a robust military and intelligence network, for these
threats are real. An Al Qaeda attack is an assault on the political
system in a way that an ordinary murder is not. And overseas terrorists
do aspire to commit mass murder again, perhaps with chemical, nuclear or
biological weapons, and our government is right to work hard to prevent
such a cataclysm. </p>
<p>
But there are trade-offs, including other ways to protect the public,
and our entire focus seems to be on national security rather than on
more practical ways of assuring our safety. </p>
<p>
The imbalance in our priorities is particularly striking because since
2005, terrorism has taken an average of 23 American lives annually,
mostly overseas — and the number has been falling. </p>
<p>
More Americans die of falling televisions and other appliances than from
terrorism. Twice as many Americans die of bee or wasp stings annually.
And 15 times as many die by falling off ladders. </p>
<p>
Most striking, more than 30,000 people die annually from firearms
injuries, including suicides, murders and accidents, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. American children are 13
times as likely to be killed by guns as in other industrialized
countries. </p>
<p>
Doesn’t it seem odd that we’re willing to spend trillions of dollars,
and intercept metadata from just about every phone call in the country,
to deal with a threat that, for now, kills but a few Americans annually —
while we’re too paralyzed to introduce a rudimentary step like
universal background checks to reduce gun violence that kills tens of
thousands? </p>
<p>
Wasn’t what happened at Sandy Hook a variant of terrorism? And isn’t
what happens in troubled gang-plagued neighborhoods of Chicago just as
traumatic for schoolchildren, leaving them suffering a kind of
post-traumatic stress disorder? </p>
<p>
I don’t see any glib solutions here, just a need for a careful balancing
of risks and benefits. I’d say that in auto safety, we get it about
right. We give most adults access to cars, but we regulate them with
licenses, insurance requirements and mandatory seat belts. In the case
of national security and terrorism, I wonder if we haven’t overdeployed
resources. </p>
<p>
In the case of guns, we don’t do enough. Baby steps, consistent with the
Second Amendment, would include requiring universal background checks,
boosting research to understand gun violence and investing in smarter
guns. A debit card requires a code to work, a car requires a key — and a
gun, nothing at all. </p>
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<p style="text-align:center">•</p>
<p>I invite you to visit my blog, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground">On the Ground</a>. Please also join me on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/kristof">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/102839963139173448834/posts?hl=en">Google+</a>, watch my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/nicholaskristof">YouTube videos</a> and follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/nickkristof">Twitter</a>.</p>
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</div>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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