&gt; &quot;In the wake of a terrorist attack, the public demands that laws be changed to make them safer&quot; = false.<p>Well, that may be a subtle difference in interpretation but the general opinion is that we are &#x27;unsafe&#x27; and that &#x27;something should be done&#x27;.<p>Opposition parties in various countries have definitely used these attacks to create an impression that &#x27;something could have been done&#x27; and that if they were in the driving seat &#x27;something would have been done&#x27;. Incumbents are scared of losing voters due to being seen as &#x27;doing nothing&#x27; and so will resort to doing &#x27;something&#x27; just to stave off the inevitable (admitting that they don&#x27;t know what to do, and neither does the opposition, mostly because there isn&#x27;t a whole lot they can do to begin with that does not involve a change of course for the next 30 years and an admission that they royally messed up during the last 30 years).