Statistics and math do little to inform people about many aspects of life. Reality in a statistical sense does not represent how caring human beings decide what is important.
Statistically speaking the rate at which police officers lose their lives is lower than other types of work, so if we choose to ignore anything other than math and statistics why is everybody standing along the road showing their respect to the fallen officer? We don't do that when a truck driver or a roofer dies doing his job.
And statistically speaking it really doesn't matter if there is some continuous loss of lives due to terrorism, or violence, or mass shootings. Your risk of actually being a terror victim is lower than your chance of being killed by lightning.
But life isn't just statistics, and it isn't just math. And many other things are more important to our society.
We 'stand along the road' showing respect for fallen servicemen and women too. Army rangers who died in the Osama Bin Laden raid are treated differently than the Bank President who has a heat attack on the job.
Why?
We 'stand along the road side' because these people - police officers, firemen, and our military - have chosen professions where they risk their lives PROTECTING US. They ARE the sheepdogs.
The logger, the roofer, the bank president or truck driver can die on the job and the death is a sad event for the person's loved ones and family. And those in their circle of influence will be effected and suffer a loss. But it's not the same - and YOU free and freeaing - know that...you know the difference.
We'd sure as heck almost all be better off if "Reality in a statistical sense" was at least the #1 component in most of our evaluations. And, that IS the most caring outlook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_8nY_LQL3w 0:40
That doesn't mean it is the only component, or can never be overruled by compelling or multiple other components.
As for terrorism, the goal of the terrorists is far, far beyond the people they kill. The victims are only (especially to the terrorists) an almost irrelevant means to an end. And as for myself, MY own present risk, or that of my Mom, or you, or any other individual, of being a "direct" terror victim, has literally nothing to do with how I evaluate the threat from terrorism, or how I think it should be dealt with.