Are people overreacting to terrorism, and are extreme attitudes to immigration/refugees justified?

Yes and no.

I'll break this into two categories: refugees and terrorism.

Terroism: First off, there really is something to be said about islamic terrorism. According to data compiled from 'List of Terrorist Incidents' on wikipedia, both 2015 and 2016, there seems to be a clear pattern in the perpetrators of terrorism.

In 2015, 69% of terrorist attacks globally were cited as islamic perpetrators. In 2016, it was 81%. Despite only making up 23% percentage of the global population, islam was responsible for 69% & 81% of global terror in the past two years alone. Additionally, lets take a look at the top 10 terror attacks for each of those years: 2015 & 2016. (I would go back through the previous 10 years, but wikipedia didn't easily sort the data like 2015 and 2016, so if there really is debate about which group was responsible for the most attacks in the previous years, then I'll go back through.)

Granted, this data does take into account lots of violence in seemingly third world countries around the globe torn apart by conflict where groups like ISIL, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab are the controlling groups in those respective regions. However, that is irrelevant when taking into account the raw sum of all terror for the those years as islam is, by a huge margin, the objective leader in global terror.

Now if we shift to just western society, the trend is even more stark. Since 9/11, if we look at significant terrorist incidents perpetrated in western countries, islam is, again, the leader in terrorist activity.

Date Name Location Dead(injured) Group
2002 The Beltway Snipers New England 17(10) Two lone jihadists
2004 Madrid Bombings Spain 192(2,050) Al-Qaeda
2005 London Bombings England 56(784) Al-Qaeda
2009 Ft. Hood Shooting Texas 13(32) Lone Jihadist
2011 Norway Attacks Norway 77(319) Brevik
2012 Toulouse Attacks France 8(5) Lone Jihadist
2013 Boston Marathon Bombing Bahhstan, dood 5(280) Tsarnaev brothers (citing unfair treatment of muslims)
2014 Canadian Parliment Shooting Canada 2(3) Jihad
2014 Jewish Museum of Brussels Belgium 4 ISIS
2015 Charleston Shooting SC 9(1) Dylan Roof
2015 Ile-de-France Attacks Paris (four locations) 20(22) ISIS
2015 November Paris Attacks Paris (various) 137(368) ISIS
2015 Chatanooga Shooting Tenessese 5(1) Lone Jihadist
2015 Planned Parenthood shooting CO 3(9) Robert Dear
2015 San Bernadino Attack CA 14(24) Jihadist
2016 Brussels Bombings Belgium 35(340) ISIS
2016 Nice Attack France 87(434) ISIS
2016 Berlin Christmas Attack Germany 12(56) ISIS
2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting Orlando 49(53) Lone Jihadist
2016 Ataturk Attack Turkey 39(241) ISIS
2017 Paris Airport Orly 0(4) Jihadist
2017 Westminster Attack England 5(49) Believed to be islamic in nature
2017 Paris Shooting Paris 1(3) ISIS
2017 St. Petersburg Metro Bombing Russia 15(64) ISIS

Sources 1 & 2

As clearly evident by the raw numbers, the overwhelming majority of terrorist incidents are carried out in the name of islam.

/r/TrueAskReddit Thread