At a random 10% everyone could and should be worried that they'd be in the next 10%. That's 10% chance of being executed per year! That's really bad!

It's not at all similar to a _rare_ phenomenon, or at least it _shouldn't_ be, but some people are inclined to treat very fringe risks (or at least some very fringe risks; there are likely more people worried about being killed by terrorism than food poisoning, say) as very great risks.