The Prime Minister of Norway refuses to overreact to shocking politicized violence. From the New York Times: 

“‘It’s absolutely possible to have an open, democratic, inclusive society, and at the same time have security measures and not be naive,’ Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo. ‘I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after July 22,’ he said. ‘But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.’”

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David Foster Wallace, completely unburdened by political office, took things a step further in response to 9/11. From the Atlantic in 2007:

“Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, ‘sacrifices on the altar of freedom’? In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?”