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.
Seems clear to me that the volunteer army has never been overly picky about the background of people it enlists. Wasn't there a mole in the Special Forces before 9/11? Somehow the security procedures of the military had no problem allowing that. Then the Ft Hood doctor. How many sleepers are wearing the uniform of our nation right now? Anyone care to guess? To say zero is VERY optimistic. Even people who might not have been a risk pre-2003 are potential threats now due to the rotten way our government has treated its enlistees.
I'm not confident that I know whether to screen them more carefully or less. But to say somehow being allowed to wear a uniform is tantamount to a clean bill of health is not rational in my view. On top of everything, even when the current government mustered them out, it was into a bleak civilian society. If a few are ticking time bombs, I can't even say I don't get why. I do. America is a society fertile in reasons to be very mad.