Are you familiar with the term Stochastic Terrorism? The upshot is that enough public support may encourage individuals to take action against high-profile targets.
Imagine, for a secone, that you’re one of those 1%. According to the census, there are about 340 million people in the US. If just 50% of them hate you, that’s 170 million. If 99.9% of them do nothing, that still leaves 170 thousand willing to act. Statistically, you’d have one potential killer every two thousand people. Sure, the actual figure might be much lower. Do you know for sure? How would you estimate that?
Let’s run with that statistic for now. How many people do you interact with or pass by daily? Weekly? Monthly? How many of those potential 170k might intentionally seek you out? The more wealthy or prominent you are, the greater of a target you become, but it may also depend on personal wrongs, leaving a lot of uncertainty and hard to predict variables. How would you know whether there’s a target on your back? Or multiple?
If you thought you were invincible, that deterrence by law enforcement and public distaste for violence would prevent any such events, that illusion has been shattered now. All it takes is one slip-up of security, one person with nothing to lose and the right luck.
Would you feel safe?
Until recently, we all thought nothing would happen. Now something has happened. I think at this point it’s impossible to predict whether that will inspire copycats, whether the public approval may encourage more disruptice mass action or whether it will actually go back to complacency and stay an isolated incident. That unpredictability should give them pause.
