Avoiding terrorism is pretty easy: avoid the busy parts of the largest cities. Nobody is carrying out a terrorist attack in Boise.
Which is ironic that the Americans who appear to be the most fearful of terrorism are the ones who live in places where it will most likely never happen.
Can we agree that the conditions for lightning are fairly predictable, and staying safe is pretty straightforward? Whereas "just don't be where all the people are" is by definition advice that most people can't or won't follow.
Honestly I don't think this point is really debatable. Unpredictability is a core characteristic of terrorism. If tomorrow all Americans decided to spread homogeneously across the country and never congregate in large groups, terrorists would think of something else. If it were predictable and avoidable it wouldn't be as scary, which is the whole point of this conversation.
"The analysis measured not whether a city would make an attractive target to a terrorist but rather how well it could withstand an attack, Piegorsch said."
In other words, Boise is ill-prepared to handle an attack, but no statement is made on the likelihood that it would be a target. That likelihood is, of course, quite low.
For the second, the goals of an individual nut who couldn't even make his plan work aren't all that interesting.
Characterizing my advice as "just don't be where all the people are" is super misleading. There are a small number of likely terrorist targets, and my advice is not to be there. If you're worried about terrorism, then you should probably avoid Manhattan, downtown Boston, major airports, etc. And most people paranoid about terrorism probably already avoid these places. Chicago or Miami or Seattle are probably fine. Places away from the centers of likely target cities are probably fine. "Don't visit New York" is perfectly viable advice for a fearful person in Iowa.
You can easily reduce your risk of being killed by lightning, but remaining perfectly safe is hard. Taking shelter isn't necessarily sufficient. Lightning can conduct into buildings, and it can also start fires.
I don't think the fear of terrorism is down to its unpredictability and unavoidability. The same is true of car crashes (someone else's mistake or malevolence can easily end your life on the road, and avoiding the roads is not an option for the vast majority of people) and yet people give little thought to those.
Which is ironic that the Americans who appear to be the most fearful of terrorism are the ones who live in places where it will most likely never happen.