How do you live with anxiety about random violence?

Giving a possible trigger warning in case anyone is triggered by light discussion of g*n violence.

I live in the US and I am absolutely terrified quite frequently about going out in public, whether to grocery stores, movie theaters, concerts, malls, etc. due to the gun violence that happens here. Every time there is a mass shooting in the news, it sets me off, and I just saw the news about another one.

Honestly having been inside for most of the last year due to the pandemic has actually been somewhat of a blessing to me. I don't want people to be sick, and I want the pandemic to end, but I've not had to worry nearly as much about being overcome with anxiety related to gun violence.

I live in a relatively small and usually safe city, and while I guess that should make me feel better, it often doesn't, because it can truly happen anywhere, and it terrifies me. After the Aurora shooting in the movie theater, I barely went to theaters anymore, because of how scared I was. I ended up stopping completely for about 5 years, only recently going back a couple of times prior to the pandemic, and being so scared I could barely focus on the film each time.

Now that we have vaccines and life will eventually return to somewhat normal, I can feel the anxiety building again. Of course, it's spiked by the news. I stay away from it as much as I can, but it's hard to avoid it completely. I try not to think about it, but I feel like I'm often on guard in public, knowing that if that ever happened somewhere where I was, there'd be little I could do. I've had nightmares about it too, and those are ... bad.

Basically I feel like there isn't much I can do about this, but wow is it debilitating sometimes. And it affects my relationship, family, friends, etc because of course they want to go places (when we aren't in a pandemic) and it's...hard for me to.