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Federal authorities, including the FBI, announced on Monday that they had thwarted a bombing attack planned for New Year’s Eve in California. This comes after high-profile attacks both here in the U.S. and abroad.
This all comes as attacks on Christmas markets in Europe have become relatively frequent in recent years—and nearly a year after a terrorist drove a truck through a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve 2024. So how safe are we?
The good news is you don’t need to fear for your safety every time you head to a Christmas or New Year’s celebration. Jeff Addicott, director of the Warrior Defense Project at St. Mary’s University School of Law, said: “You have more of a chance to die in a car accident than you do in a terror attack—but that’s why they use the holiday period: to cause fear.”
Essentially, while your risk is low, there could still be holiday terror attacks in the U.S., so keep your eyes and ears open. According to Addicott: “The greatest thing you can do is ‘see something, say something.’ Many terror attacks were broken up because ordinary citizens saw something unusual and called authorities.”
Addicott also praised the Trump administration for focusing on practical threats to the safety of Americans and addressing them. He pointed to the recent California case as an example of how Trump isn’t wasting federal law enforcement resources but rather putting them to work and making Americans safer.