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Surely it does help (if it's heeded at all) to the extent that the person's statement isn't totally untrue? If they're going to actually be worried, or act differently in the future, about lgbtq mass shootings, understanding it's not a meaningful risk could reduce that. Which benefits them because they don't take unnecessary action, waste time, avoid useful activity for no reason. I'd personally be annoyed if, e.g., the comments on reddit posts about murders where people said "OMG THIS IS SO SCARY" didn't have replies saying "well, ackshually, P(car crash|LGBT) = 1000 * P(mass shooting|LGBT), so there's nothing to worry about", because that's valuable information. And more generally, 'being scared after a reported violent event', and being upset/fear generally, is an ... adaptation that helps people avoid harm in the future, that's why that particular set of mechanisms evolved. Using that to be afraid in cases of actual harm is just better! "Feeling" does not mean "whenever something might upset someone, that means it shouldn't happen" - it refers to a bunch of contingent adaptations / tendencies with many different roles, and 'feelings' and 'rational logic' are deeply intertwined (i.e., the ability to infer that 'lgbt mass shooting' means 'i might die' is as 'logical' as anything else). That this particular response breaks a social norm isn't because "Rational Logic^{tm}" and feelings don't mix, it's just that ... the response breaks a specific social norm, and OP cares more about other consequences of the response than that social norm.
I think the middle path here is to wait to see if OP's friend is actually serious about not going out anymore or was just expressing their feelings in the moment.
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