Security theater. sigh If the government was actually serious about protecting women and children from people with malicious intent, terrorists would be toward the bottom of the list, just above school shooters. Domestic abuse far outstrips any news-worthy outrages, but you don't get many votes talking about that.
Security theater to treat criminal violence theater. It makes a perverse sort of sense.
Terrorism is not really about deaths; there are many greater causes of preventable death, as you note. It's about attacking a nation's perception of safety. You can ignore another random car accident or drug-related murder, but it's much harder to ignore 9/11.
I'd much prefer the vaccine to the "cure": to educate ourselves on this tactic and refuse to play along, treating terrorism the way we would treat a natural disaster. But alas, there's too much money and power to be gained in the security theater racket, and power abhors a vacuum.
