I took gang violence as an example, there are many other kinds of "common violence" that could happen to anyone. The US stats below are for a single year [1] [2]. For reference, cumulative casualties in the US as a result of terrorism for 2001-2014 is 3,412 [3], 416 if you exclude 9/11. Any way you look at it, terrorism is a very minor form of crime in the US and Europe.
Yes, this is it exactly. Terrorism is scary the same way a random murder in your neighborhood is scary.
Anecdote: I live in one of the lowest crime neighborhoods in Chicago. Every now and again though someone is shot in the area. The first thing I always wonder: was it random or was it gang/drug related? Nine of ten times it's the latter and I feel better because I don't associate with gangs or regularly participate in drug deals in a McDonald's parking lot at 4AM. It's scary when it's random because it's easy to think, "that could have been me, it could have been anyone."
That's why terrorism is scary (and that's why the terrorists do what they do). Of course protections should be in place, but there's simply only so much you can do before you're policing every aspect of everyone's life to prevent the tiniest chance that something happens to a tiny percentage of people. But, damn, is it scary.
You could aggressively curtail civil liberties in order to crack down on drunken driving, which kills more people than 9/11 each year, and can happen to pretty much anybody.
Good counterpoint, I don't have an answer for you, you'd need somebody who supports curtailing civil liberties in order to combat terrorism to give an answer to that.
