In what sense is it a straw man argument? Republicans favor spending enormous amounts of money fighting Islamic terrorists, while ignoring much more probable threats. That is not hyperbole, it is sad truth.
Or you can simply look at the probability of various causes of death: http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrori.... They don't specifically have ladder deaths, but at about 300/year, it would rank between heat waves and electricity on the list.