'If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?'

The title of this post was posted on yesterday's New York Times website by Freakonomics author Steven Levitt.  He speculates as to what kind of outrage by terrorists would most scare America.  This is his suggestion:

"The basic idea is to arm 20 terrorists with rifles and cars, and arrange to have them begin shooting randomly at pre-set times all across the country. Big cities, little cities, suburbs, etc. Have them move around a lot. No one will know when and where the next attack will be. The chaos would be unbelievable, especially considering how few resources it would require of the terrorists. It would also be extremely hard to catch these guys. The damage wouldn’t be as extreme as detonating a nuclear bomb in New York City, of course; but it sure would be a lot easier to obtain a handful of guns than a nuclear weapon."

Mr Levitt justifies his posting by it suggesting that touting such ideas "gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur."  Many of the people who left comments on the blog thought him irresponsible, however, in feeding enemies of America with ideas.