In the US, that would be against the individuals who collectively commit millions of violent crimes per year (surveys indicate this number easily exceeds 5 million per year).
What are the odds of that happening to you though? I don't know what the actual statistics are but it seems highly improbable. And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.
About 150 per 100k people are the victim of a violent crime every year in my hometown. And the rates are much higher than that in some neighborhoods.
You mentioned London. St. Louis has about twice as many homicides per year as London. There are 300 thousand people in St. Louis. London has, what, 8 million? And half as many murders.
I’m sure you do feel safe there. I’m less confident when I’m back home.
You’ll forgive me, I hope, for accidentally posting the crime rates for the greater St. Louis area, immediately followed by the homicide totals for only the City of St. Louis.
The actual rates within the city are almost unbelievable: 1,913.2 violent crimes per 100k people.
Of course, this highlights the truth of a chorus oft-repeated there, which is that the region as a whole isn’t nearly as unsafe as the City numbers imply, a problem exacerbated (and concealed) by the City’s relatively small footprint within the area.
But that’s small consolation to those of us who make our homes and spend our time in that undeniably violent core.
That's hugely dependent on who you are and where you live and so on, but there are estimated to be around 6 million violent crimes per year, or about 55 people per violent crime. Of course many people are victimized more than once, so you can't easily extrapolate to how likely a random person is to be victimized. Either way, over a lifespan, that is a significant risk.
>And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.
What you're missing is that I don't want someone to rob me. I don't want my family to ever be at the mercy of a violent thug. They ultimately depend upon me for their safety, and I am going to do what I can to guarantee it.
Okay we are not on the same page at all because again I don't understand what "deadly threat" you could be encountering. You're talking like you live in the Purge or something.
I'm talking about the ~6 million estimated violent crimes that occur each year. Many, many of those are deadly threats. Any that involve a weapon are automatically deadly threats. Any involving multiple attackers are deadly threats. Any that involve a significant advantage in physical force of the attacker over the target are deadly threats. In general, any that involve the attacker being in a position to cause death or grave bodily harm are considered deadly threats, and can be legally met with lethal force if that is necessary to stop the threat.
I'm not sure what world you are living in. There are millions of people who are victims of violent crime each year in the US. It happens. A lot.
The US is awash with guns. There are multiple guns for every US citizens. Despite all these guns the US, as you say, is also a very violent crime ridden country.
I can see that they're not an automatic cure-all for violence. There are parts of the US with extremely high gun ownership rates, and virtually no crime. And there are parts of the US with high gun ownership rates and high levels of crime. The fact is that there are many people in this world with violent tendencies. There always have been. Their violent tendencies are not a consequence of guns being around.
However, guns are a very effective tool for defending one's self and one's family against such people.
What the hell do you mean "surveys"? You don't need "surveys" to tell you how many violent crimes there are in a year. We have actual statistics. And the numbers are not in the millions. Stop pushing lies.
Crime victimization surveys. The 'actual statistics' you refer to are reported crimes, i.e. crimes which were reported to the police and which the police took the time to record. They vastly underrepresent the actual number of crimes. That's why people who are interested in getting a more accurate estimate of the actual number of crimes do crime victimization surveys. This is all pretty well known and obvious. That you aren't aware of it is telling.
In the US, that would be against the individuals who collectively commit millions of violent crimes per year (surveys indicate this number easily exceeds 5 million per year).