Ditto to almost all of the Raval. The only hotel exceptions there for me would be 1898 with large rooftop pool and Camper in the upper Ravel, closer to the very bustling Plaça de Catalunya. We usually stay in the upper Eixample, above Carrer València (quieter, less congested) and avoid lodgings in the very, very crowded Gothic Quarter.

Many thanks to all those who responded. I have additional questions about places to stay in Western/Northwestern Mallorca and will start a separate thread.

My mistake in my earlier post. They didn't stay in a hotel with a rooftop pool near the Museum of Catalan Art. It was located by the metro stop in Montjuich. The point was that it can be a pro to stay in a hotel as opposed to an Air B and B because of access to a rooftop pool. It was quite hot last summer when they were in both Barcelona and Madrid so nice to have access to a pool after being out and about.

You should be fine. Media are doing their job really well. Barcelona is safe and you should not have a problem at all.

Things like a squirt gun mob tend to loom so big in our minds before going somewhere that once had people getting shot at by squirt guns, that it can dominate your whole internal phantasmagorical imaginary scenery of what it will be like when you go there. Then, when you get there, you realize that it is very nice indeed - - and things simply are as they are, in a very workable way - - and your imaginings . . . were just that. When the media report an incident, they never mention that outside of one 40x40 meter spot the rest of the city was just peachy - - and they never then follow up with a report exclaiming in bold letters that the very next day, week, month, everything is perfectly normal. That is not news. Their job is to get you to pick up the paper and shriek. And then our imaginations are perpetually addled by that miniscule, microscopic thing that happened.

For info: the number of people from the US visiting Barcelona, despite increasing significantly, is relatively low (~10% of the total), so, as @mikelg said, it doesn't really have any major impact regarding accommodation availability or anything else.