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Laws on the books aside, are there big cities in Europe where there are more shootings than in American mega-cities NYC, Chicago, or LA? If so, they don't make

Laws on the books aside, are there big cities in Europe where there are more shootings than in American mega-cities NYC, Chicago, or LA? If so, they don't make the news here in the US much. I think you have the causality reversed: the reason gun-hostile politicians and activists are so vocal in the US is because the country has so many guns in so many members of the public, both in an out of cities. I haven't seen their vocalness successfully eliminate the guns and shootings from their cities.

sethhochberg 6y ago
Its also worth pointing out that all large American cities aren't equal in terms of crime stats - NYC is (surprisingly, to many people) among the safest. I can remember reading headlines within the last decade about London notably reaching a higher murder rate, despite London presumably having something closer to total prohibition of firearms. TV shows here love to portray NYC as a Gotham-esque hellscape because that makes for good police procedurals, but in reality I'd bet if you invented some kind of metric comparing TV portrayals of violent crimes against actual violent crime stats NYC would have the largest gap between fiction and reality. Don't get me wrong, horrific stuff happens here. There are millions upon millions of people, some of them awful to others. But by the numbers its safer than almost every other major metro in the country, and solidly middle of the pack among comparable global mega-cities.
- Aethelwulf 6y ago
  https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/03/20/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-why-londons-murder-rate-is-not-higher-than-nycs https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/03/20/lie...
- astrange 6y ago
  It's because NYC was very dangerous from 60s-90s, and the US is still stuck appealing to Boomers. They also might've picked it up by copying older shows - even if you're too nerdy to watch TV, "NYC is dangerous" is the whole message of Batman.

sethhochberg 6y ago

Its also worth pointing out that all large American cities aren't equal in terms of crime stats - NYC is (surprisingly, to many people) among the safest. I can remember reading headlines within the last decade about London notably reaching a higher murder rate, despite London presumably having something closer to total prohibition of firearms. TV shows here love to portray NYC as a Gotham-esque hellscape because that makes for good police procedurals, but in reality I'd bet if you invented some kind of metric comparing TV portrayals of violent crimes against actual violent crime stats NYC would have the largest gap between fiction and reality. Don't get me wrong, horrific stuff happens here. There are millions upon millions of people, some of them awful to others. But by the numbers its safer than almost every other major metro in the country, and solidly middle of the pack among comparable global mega-cities.

Aethelwulf 6y ago
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/03/20/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-why-londons-murder-rate-is-not-higher-than-nycs https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/03/20/lie...
astrange 6y ago
It's because NYC was very dangerous from 60s-90s, and the US is still stuck appealing to Boomers. They also might've picked it up by copying older shows - even if you're too nerdy to watch TV, "NYC is dangerous" is the whole message of Batman.