I’m not sure it is. I think there’s always a how-much-resources subtext. People stressing how scary and dangerous terrorism is are (I think) usually doing so to justify expending resources, or trampling on civil liberties, or something of the kind. People stressing how little harm it actually does are (I think) usually doing so in opposition to that, implicitly or explicitly saying “this is not the sort of threat that justifies the huge expense and inconvenience and indignity of airport security theatre”.
In which case, the relevant question is not “how much harm does terrorism do?” but something more like “what would the tradeoffs be if we did more or less of this allegedly-anti-terrorist stuff?”.
I’m not sure it is. I think there’s always a how-much-resources subtext. People stressing how scary and dangerous terrorism is are (I think) usually doing so to justify expending resources, or trampling on civil liberties, or something of the kind. People stressing how little harm it actually does are (I think) usually doing so in opposition to that, implicitly or explicitly saying “this is not the sort of threat that justifies the huge expense and inconvenience and indignity of airport security theatre”.
In which case, the relevant question is not “how much harm does terrorism do?” but something more like “what would the tradeoffs be if we did more or less of this allegedly-anti-terrorist stuff?”.