[ceejayoz]

Sure.

Chicago's guns come from outside Chicago; it's surrounded by very permissive jurisdictions. (Trump supporters like to call this sort of issue "open borders".)

Your county's seemingly "low" rate is 5x that of China (0.5/100k), 3x that of Germany (0.8/100k), double the city of London (1.4/100k). It's abberantly high still, by international standards.

[dragonwriter]

Despite emphasizing “city of London”, the stats you are citing seem to be those of Metropolitan London (for which stats are relatively easily locatable), not the City of London (for which this particular stat is harder to find, but overall has much lower crime than Metropolitan London.)

[ceejayoz]

The city of London is Metropolitan London. The Big-C City of London is the little bit mostly fascinating to those of us who go down Wikipedia rabbit holes. I didn't capitalize it for a reason; I emphasize its being a city because it's useful in the "well that's because the stats are for entire countries" aspect of things.

Big cities in Europe are largely safer statistically than even the low-crime areas of the US.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Why don't you compare the US to Nigeria, Brazil, or Pakistan? Those are more in-line with US population size than Germany, London, or China

[ceejayoz]

> Why don't you compare the US to Nigeria, Brazil, or Pakistan?

Because we are in the developed world, and "at least we're better than Pakistan" is probably not the highest of bars we should aspire to as a country?

> Those are more in-line with US population size than Germany, London, or China

The EU, if you prefer - similar size, population, state+federal(ish) makeup, developed world, mix of wealthy and poorer jurisdictions, etc. - has a 0.86/100k rate.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

> is probably not the highest of bars we should aspire to

Keep going on this. Why is the US inherently better than Pakistan/Nigeria/Brazil?

[ceejayoz]

Inherently? Nah.

Historically? Colonialism.

Currently? Yeah, I'd rather live here in the developed world.

[hollerith]

Because the numbers we are citing here have been divided by population size.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

It's likely that population size/density can't be abstracted away by normalizing figures since those are actually factors leading to population violence/governance.

[hollerith]

Why would a resident of a populous country be significantly more likely to kill than a resident of a small country?

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

No idea, but look at the homicide rate or Wyoming (590k, 2.6/100k) vs that of any similarly-populated US city: Baltimore (576k, 58/100k), Albuquerque (562k, 21/100k), Fresno (544k, 13/100k).

[hollerith]

Yes, it is widely known that population density increases the homicide rate. However your first comment in this thread asserted that it is illogical or improper to compare (the homicide rate in) the US to Germany or China on the grounds that the one has a much smaller total population than the US and that the other has a much larger total population, and you have added nothing that supports those 2 assertions.

If every country in the world had the same area as every other country, then you could draw a line from total population to population density, but of course that is not the case.

[ceejayoz]

Now, do the same with similarly sized cities and regions in the developed world - the EU, for example.

You’ll find dramatically lower rates for comparable populations.