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My point is that your comparison contrasts what is vs. some long shot.
I don't think the fear about Happy Meals is the same as the fear about guns. With the Happy Meals, I'm not sure you could even call it a fear. Maybe more of a concern for the well-being of other people, especially impressionable minors.
Sure you can pass off a Happy Meal as a part of one's diet, but the issue isn't that they contain fat, salt, and carbohydrates, it's that they contain an unideal amount and unideal types. Any nutritionist will tell you that the amount of salt in a Happy Meal is high enough to warrant making it only a rare treat, rather than "a part of a balanced diet." The animal fat and refined carbohydrates are another matter. They're okay in moderation, I suppose, but too much isn't ideal.
I don't even know why I'm going into this. Are people really afraid of Happy Meals, or are they afraid of childhood obesity and the long-term effects of diet on such things as heart disease and cancer?
What's more reasonable to fear? The top actual killers in America or some totalitarian fantasy?
If you were just using these examples as metaphors, then do away with them because they're distracting. Are you instead asking what's more reasonable to fear between corporations and governments?
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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