Once again music gets the blame

[M Holmes]

Ted Jackson writes:

> Excellent point.  I live in an old, decayed, rustbelt city with a
> population around 150K [metro area more than twice that] full of
> unemployment and no hope of a decent job for a local kid, and gun
> crime here is ridiculously low.  You'd think this place would be a
> breeding ground for gun crime.  And, although there is some gang
> activity, and we get about 10 murders a year, this is a relatively
> safe place to live.  Sounds a lot safer than the Scotland you
> describe!

To be fair, Scotland as yet tops world leagues only in murder by knife.

Still, we're double England's homicide rate more or less and as ours
rises and the US's falls, we should be ahead of you on homicide some
time before the decade is out. We already have you beat nine ways from
Sunday on other violent crime and burglary, as does England.

The idea that the US is more dangerous than Britain is laughable for
anyone not involved in the retail of recreational pharmaceuticals.
Even the Home Office had to concede that one recently, though it didn't
make the newspapers.

FoFP