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Steve Hewitt is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of The British War on Terror: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism on the Home Front since 9/11.

"We're lucky to be an island." So a member of the local counter-terrorism unit in Birmingham told me a few days after the November, 2015, Paris terrorist attacks in which 130 people were murdered by Islamist extremists. The officer meant in a physical sense – it's harder to bring weapons and ammunition into the United Kingdom – but also practically. The U.K. has strict gun laws of the type unimaginable in the United States where attackers in Orlando and San Bernardino managed to kill large numbers of people using legally acquired guns.

But the London attack demonstrates, once again, that even geography doesn't protect a country against terrorism. British security agencies have warned repeatedly that such an attack was inevitable and the national Terrorism Threat Level in advance of Wednesday's violence stood at "Severe," meaning a terrorist attack was "highly likely." Thus the inevitable occurred, and not just anywhere but in the country's capital city just outside of the "mother of parliaments." The end result is four dead, including the attacker, many serious injuries and widespread fear.

Such is the nature of terrorism in the modern age. In the modus operandi of today, specifically the use of a vehicle, London resembles what has occurred in Nice, and other cities in France before that, Berlin, and even in the United States, specifically Ohio State University. It is doable terrorism in which normal tools of life, such as a motor vehicle or a kitchen knife, become instruments of carnage. No laws can stop individuals bent on carrying out such mayhem although restrictions, such as limiting access to firearms, can potentially reduce the death toll from acts of horrendous violence. Ultimately, then, when it comes to terrorism, it is a case of containment and not curtailment.

That's because the London attack is yet another example of lone-actor terrorism. Based on precedent, the attacker will likely have drifted through life, with frequent involvement in petty crime and substance abuse. Then the individual, seeking salvation for what amounts to a wasted life, carries out an act of extreme violence. Such terrorists are often unknown to the authorities and, because of their willingness to use something as simple as a car or knife, are virtually impossible to stop. Targets can be hardened in anticipation of an act of terrorism, but such protection is ultimately futile if people can be run over while walking along a sidewalk.

In coming hours and days, attention will turn from the nature of the attack to the motivation of the attacker. The style of attack resembles clearly what Islamic State and al-Qaeda have encouraged their members to do and what some have subsequently done. However, the last lone-actor terrorist attack in the United Kingdom was carried out by a far-right extremist when he murdered Labour Member of Parliament Jo Cox in June, 2016.

If such violence is impossible to prevent, no matter the laws and measures or geography of a place, then the only course moving forward is resiliency through not overreacting to each new atrocity.

Recent history can provide some useful perspective – for despite the perception that terrorism is at an all-time high – more people died in Western Europe from terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s than have died in the same region since 9/11. The United Kingdom, of course, has considerable experience of its own when it comes to terrorism. Indeed, the British news Tuesday was dominated by the death of a former senior commander in the Irish Republican Army, Martin McGuinness.

In 1972, the single worst year of The Troubles, 479 people died as a result of the violence. In comparison, just over 600 people have died in Islamist and far-right terrorist attacks in Europe over the 15 years since 9/11. Historical perspective, then, can offer recognition that, as horrid as the London attack was, even worse violence has been experienced and survived in the past.

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