text: No, we have a very rational fear of lightning, and take precautions against it, even if has always been an unlikely cause of death, which explains why it is an even less likely cause of death in developed countries today.
  
  We go to great lengths to prevent negative events of all kinds, with laws and regulations, as in the debates about "free-range children" for example, or consumer protection laws, health inspections,  airline crash investigations, etc.  You could call all of those "irrational fears" based on the small likelihood of any of those events happening. 
  
  In fact, the hysteria over "islamophobia" based on one fringe character going off the rails in Quebec City is a good candidate for "irrational fear reaction." The chances of such an event being repeated are infinitesimal, and yet Parliament is overreacting in an irrational manner to it.