Some rather interesting statistics I found. For starters, there was signigicantly more terrorism in the 1970's than now, with a similar rate as today found in the 1980's. There are a few explanations for the data of the 1970's; this coincided with the so-called 'Troubles' in Ireland, as well as the rise of communist terror groups and Palestinian speratists working in Germany. I wonder did we try to restrict immigration of either Germans or the Irish?
It appears that in 2016, Boko Haram killed more people than ISIS, but Boko Haram do not have much of a prescence in Europe (if at all?) so we do not hear of that. For both groups, most of these deaths occurred outside Europe. I guess this tells us that ISIS are losing power (a known) and that they are more likely to attack people in the same geographical region as them. That's a touch surprising though; do we consider the deaths of Europeans to count for more than the deaths of non-Europeans?
Last year, in western Europe, something like 175 people died from terrorism. In the EU the figures for deaths via gun violence is around 6,000; even removing the majority that were self-inflicted, you've got about 1500 deaths from guns. Yet, you do not have the media and political frenzy around guns in Europe that you do around terrorism.
This suggests a few things. We value our 'own' ethnicity higher than others; this is not surprising and is likely a trait we evolved for survival, and that we judge crimes comitted upon Europeans by non-Europeans as more deleterious. It could also be related to the fact that terrorism seems to have an "obvious" solution for politicians to invent, i.e. preventing Muslim migration to the EU. However, this has been somewhat undermined by the fact that most recent terrorists have been 'homegrown'.
I'm not trying to say terrorism is not a threat to Europeans- it surely is- but I am trying to say that it is not as significant of a threat than what we are lead to believe and this needs to temper any desire to dramatically change the way Europeans live as a result. And there are multiple reasons for people believing it is a greater threat then gun violence, and even domestic violence (which again kills much more than terrorism, but you do not have right-wing groups parading for this cause).
I blame the media for whipping this up, and of course it would during this time of great upheaval for various forms of media which are rapidly becoming obsolete. And I blame various right-wing groups for inisiting that the greatest threat to Europeans is coming from outside when statistics seem to demonstrate it is Europeans who are the greatest threat to themselves.
Anyway, here are the lazy links I used; please don't ask me to confirm the quality of these sources, they were the first things Google showed me. If these statistics are wrong, they would have to be very wrong for them to be telling a significant untruth.
People killed by terrorism in western Europe from 1970 on.
More people died globally from terrorism recently than ever before, just not in Europe.
Gun violence stuff from a probably biased source.
Either way, these are worth a look, I'd be interested in anyone elses interpretation of these stats.
I just feel I've said what I wanted, anything else will just be repetition. But thanks for going to the lengths you have, I see your points (I think you see mine) and appreciate that regardless of my personal opinion of them.