Imagine this scenario: You and another fifteen thousand hockey fans decide to spend the night watching the Washington Capitals take on the Philadelphia Flyers. You get your tickets, your food, and your program and you sit down in your seat. You can barely wait for the game to start, let alone end, because you have so much money riding on this game. The 7:00 face-off begins exactly at 7:00, and thousands of eager hockey fans sit back to watch the game. Shortly after the face-off, terrorists trigger an explosive charge that showers poisonous chemicals over you and the rest of the crowd. The new stadium has become a hellhole of death and confusion. People all around you reel in all directions as others push their way to clogged exits. Fans are falling to the ground choking and coughing. Their skin blisters instantly.
Other attempting to help become victims themselves after breathing the poisoned air. The city's 911 emergency lines flood with calls for help and medical assistance. Police and fire fighters arrive within minutes and set up a staging area upwind, but keep their distance. No one knows yet what sort of lethal chemical the terrorists have exploded upon you. Authorities block off the neighborhood, seeking to contain the contamination from the rest of the city. Because of the new rules of procedure, emergency professionals normally trained to risk danger have to wait until you and other victims find your way out of the stadium, where they can be decontaminated.
This horrifying scenario is what many people have had to live through, and many more will probably live through in the future. Terrorism is a problem of the past, but it seems it will be a problem of the future, too. Terrorism is once again a hot topic, but......
