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Old Jul 27, 2011 | 7:33 am
  #144  
SATTSO
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,702
Originally Posted by cestmoi123
While the things above don't actually change the real underlying risk (unless the person with the explosives actually was planning to use them), there's certainly no support for the idea that active duty military are _less_ of a risk of committing acts of terrorism than the average member of the US population. The numbers, of course, are vanishingly small in all cases (which speaks to how vastly we as a country overspend on attempting to reduce tiny risks), but, over the past decade:

Number of active duty military who committed acts of terrorism on US soil: 1
Active duty military: 2.3MM (including the reserves, to be comprehensive of anyone who might be traveling in uniform)

Number of non-active duty military who committed acts of terrorism on US soil: 19
US population ex-active duty military: 305MM.

The incidence of commission of terrorist acts among members of the military is about 7x the non-military incidence.

I'm certainly not saying "we gotta screen those military folks more closely, they're dangerous!" But there's zero reason to assume that they're LESS dangerous than the typical flyer, and hence should be screened LESS thoroughly.
Correct, but the fact is that in small ways they are screened less thoroughly, regardless of my or your opinion.
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