For the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, US taxpayers have paid roughly $4 trillion dollars, according to a report from Harvard University. This does not include the hundreds of billions of dollars allocated to intelligence agencies including the CIA and the National Security Agency.
But despite these exorbitant costs, many Americans do not feel secure. US diplomat Jim Jatras told Sputnik that, "fifteen years after 9/11 Americans are even less free and less safe."
That could be because Americans are killed by common, everyday occurrences at an astronomically higher rate than by terrorism.
According to security data site New America, 94 people have been killed by jihadist terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11. This figure comes from ten separate incidents that have occurred in the last 15 years.
By comparison, domestic right-wing extremists have killed 48 people in the same period. This figure is the result of 18 separate incidents, most of which were mass shootings.
— Revengerist Ergo Sum (@TheRevengerists) September 12, 2016
Still, these numbers pale compared to the next most lethal killer in the United States: armed toddlers.
"A little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead," read findings from the Washington Post.
From there, the culprits become even stranger. Lightning accounts for 31 deaths annually, while errant lawnmowers kill 69 people each year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.
Pedestrians being hit by a bus account for 264 deaths annually, while falling out of bed causes an astounding 737 fatalities each year.
But none of these numbers reach anywhere close to the most common American killer: guns.
The precise tally varies. While some sources place the number at around 12,000, FiveThirtyEight claims the number is much higher, totaling over 33,000 gun deaths in the United States each year. While this number includes some of the causes of death already listed, including both jihadist and right wing terror attacks, it also includes homicides and accidental shooting deaths.
Yet, while the United States government was quick to launch two wars and crackdown on civil liberties in the wake of a single, albeit devastating, terrorist attack in 2001, lawmakers refuse to pass commonsense gun reform laws.
Estimates show that there is approximately one gun in the United States for every US citizen.
