[tadfisher]

The United States is very large, and the homicide rate varies wildly between states and cities.

Where I live, Oregon, the homicide rate is 2.1 per 100,000 people, a little bit better than Finland as a whole. Hawaii is at 1.2, New Hampshire and Vermont are at 1.3, and Minnesota is at 1.4.

Contrast those with Louisiana at 11.2 per 100,000 people (!), Mississippi at 8.0, New Mexico at 7.5, and South Carolina at 6.8.

It's clear that the homicide rates in the US are aligned mostly along socio-economic and racial lines, so it doesn't make sense to compare the whole country against the more homogeneous states such as Finland, Norway, Germany, and Japan.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-...

[grecy]

I find it interesting when Americans don't want America as a whole to be compared to other countries as a whole, because inevitably it makes for an unfavorable comparison.

Of course looking at a country-wide statistic is an average across the whole country - that's the entire point. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find a part of Oregon where the homicide rate is 0.1, but that doesn't tell us much about the bigger picture.

Is America one united country, or isn't it?

[gyardley]

America has a single federal government, yes. If you just want a ranking, you can go ahead and use the national average.

However, America is ridiculously diverse culturally, and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America.

Perhaps the Americans in the thread aren't trying to avoid an unfavorable comparison - it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own country. Perhaps they're actually trying to teach you something about their country and point out that relying on averages can be misleading.

[grecy]

> and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America.

I agree. We're talking about understanding America compared to other countries, not things about America internally.

>it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own country

I completely disagree with that statement. How many times have you heard someone say "Best country in the world" with no understanding of the outside world? I'm continually shocked when meeting Americans that have absolutely no idea their infrastructure, education, health care, leave entitlements and general quality of life sucks compared to the developed world. They genuinely think they are the best in the world because that has been driven into them from day 1.

> relying on averages can be misleading.

Obviously looking at an average is exactly that. An average across the entire population, not a deep dive into where is the highest and where is the lowest, etc.

[tadfisher]

Those are strawman arguments. Meeting uninformed Americans is not evidence that the entirety of the American populace is ignorant of their failings as a developed nation.

For example, we are taught about slavery and the genocide of Native Americans in primary school. We dedicate an entire month to Black History because we are acutely aware of our status as one of the most institutionally racist countries on the planet. We have impasses at the highest levels of government over dealing with our failure to control healthcare costs, and that is something that many Americans are cognizant of. We are repeatedly informed of our failure to create a stable market economy. I can go on.

Please leave your preconceptions at the door when having a serious discussion.

[grecy]

Nothing I said was an argument, I was only stating my opinion.

An opinion, it seems, that is not uncommon.

http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/2011/10/28/america-w...

> Please leave your preconceptions at the door when having a serious discussion.

Upon arriving in America in 2003, I had no preconceptions. I'm speaking from my experiences living and working in the country.

[tadfisher]

I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. That's why it's hard to make meaningful statements about America as a whole, such as "Americans think they are number 1" or "You're more likely to get murdered if you move to America". Nobody throws a dart on a map and moves to America the country, they move to California or Virgina or Wisconsin.

Your supporting evidence cited a Fox News poll, which is probably the most biased and self-selecting demographic I can think of. That's one of our well-publicized failings, actually--the inherent biases of corporate media and the echo chamber of politics.

[smsm42]

When talking about murder statistics, you can't be speaking from experience, can you?

The truth is that there are some very nice places in America, and some not very nice places. In the nice places, statistics is good or better than a developed country, in the not nice places, statistics is worth - because these places are nothing like developed country. While they are inside the borders of the USA, their life is very different from the life of the nice places. Smaller countries frequently do not have such diversity, and averages can be deceptive (when Bill Gates walks into a bar, average wealth of the bar patron raises significantly, even though nobody really got any richer).

[flyinRyan]

Very well, but next time you want to talk about the world's largest economy just keep this in mind.

[jff]

"Sorta". It's more appropriate to compare it to the EU than to, say, Germany. The EU will still come out ahead in terms of murder rate, but it more accurately reflects the US in terms of both governmental structure and diversity of people (Louisiana is as different from Washington as Italy is from Finland)

[freehunter]

America is one united federation of states. The federal government still exercises surprisingly little control over individual states, although that control is increasing over time. Most of the federal controls exist merely to regulate inter-state commerce to make sure there are no unfair practices where Michigan can enact laws to keep Indiana businesses from operating in their state. However, two neighboring states can have wildly different laws on local issues. Michigan for the longest time required motorcyclists to wear helmets when the neighboring states didn't, and only allows heavy trucks to have two trailers where other surrounding states allow them to carry three trailers at once.

Classifying America as one solid country all across is, to be honest, quite inappropriate. It's more of a slightly more put-together European Union, with a federal government existing just to make sure everyone plays fairly.

[grecy]

America is not unique in this regard, many other countries have vastly differing state laws too.

[freehunter]

I'm not terribly familiar with states in different countries, but I wasn't trying to imply America is necessarily unique. What I was trying to get across is that, for all intents and purposes, each state in the union (read union as union of federated states) is semi-independent and can do almost anything they want outside of printing their own currency. Even that law comes with a stipulation that you can print your own currency but still have to accept US dollars as well.

The parent had asked if the US in particular was one country. In actually, it's not quite that simple. Similar reason why people refer to Canadian provinces by their provincial title in some circumstances. British Columbia is only incidentally related to Nunavut. At the same time, Washington state is only incidentally similar to Alabama.

[flyinRyan]

So compare the US to the EU then. It still doesn't come out favorably for the US.

[sneak]

Finland is 5.3 million people.

Norway is 5 million people.

Sweden is 9.5 million people.

Michigan is 9.8 million people.

California is 37.6 million people.

New York is 19.4 million people

Germany is 81.7 million people.

Please keep scale in mind.

[grecy]

Why does scale have anything to do with a per capita statistic?

[jordanb]

Hong Kong's murder rate is 0.2 per 100,000. Iceland and Singapore both have a rate of 0.3.

Clearly Western Europe is a horrible, brutal, violent place against which the inhabitants of these countries should be clicking their tongues.

[tadfisher]

As scale increases, you invariably include populations that affect your per capita statistic. The EU as a whole has a 3.5 per 100k murder rate, for example; much higher than Germany or the UK alone.

[davidwparker]

If you think about it this one, then wouldn't it be best to compare homicides per kilometer or mile? The point the parent was making is entirely valid though- the United States is a huge country compared to most.

[jvm]

I'm sure you could cherry pick parts of Finland that have even lower gun violence. Conversely, unlike your cherry-picked states, parent actually chose Finland for its exceptionally high gun violence. Even if you broke out the 50 states few would be within the normal range for wealthy countries.

[tadfisher]

Believe it or not, I don't disagree with you. The majority of states in the US are not what you would think of as "developed" by any objective measure-- be it crime, poverty, health, education, or equality. That is why I included states like Louisiana with murder rates comparable to some African nations.

But you cannot deny that some regions of the US are developed, are great places to live, and are comparable in terms of geographic area, population, and economic output with the European countries mentioned in this thread. Basically, to anyone who has spent time here, Louisiana is as different from Oregon as Lithuania is from Denmark. To lump all the states together and draw meaning from the statistical average is to fundamentally misunderstand what America is: a coalition of independent states, with different agendas and demographics.

[grecy]

> misunderstand what America is: a coalition of independent states, with different agendas

Are you saying the agenda of Louisiana is to have murder rates, poverty, health and education comparable to undeveloped countries?

[chrisdroukas]

It's relative to the population size in a few cases, though. Here in DC the homicide rate was 21.9 per 100,000 in 2010. We also have a extremely restrictive firearm policies - city law prohibits carrying guns either openly or concealed.

Despite policy, DC also had the highest rate of homicide by firearm: 35.4 per 100,000 in 2005.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_05.html

[anu_gupta]

Yes but it's also fairly clear that homicide in the UK is also aligned with socio-economic and racial lines.

It's still far less prevalent than in the US.

[tadfisher]

The UK does not have quite the racial divide that is prevalent in the US. Remember that minorities were treated as second-class citizens here as recently as the 1960s, and are still subject to institutionalized discrimination. Socioeconomic mobility is much worse here than in the UK, reinforcing the "ghettoization" of minority groups in the US.

Factor in easy access to modern weaponry, an actively-discriminating and mostly white police force, and the war on drugs, and you have a mixing pot of racial tension, poverty, and crime.

Oregon is mostly white, so is Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire. A city like New Orleans is 67% black, is mostly poor, and has one of the highest homicide rates in the country. I haven't come across a city like that in the UK.

My home town, Portland, is extremely segregated. The black population here is concentrated in an area smaller than a square mile in the Northeast quarter, and both crime rates and gang activity there outrank the rest of the city by a factor of five. This is a consequence of Oregon's racist policies (our state constitution actually banned African-American residency) that were in force until World War II, when a large black population migrated here to work at a shipbuilding yard in Northeast. After the war, a flood took out the shipbuilding yard and put most of those families out of work; their descendants are still in the same area, subject to socioeconomic pressures that keep them there.

So while Portland might sound like a great place to live, it is only because the crime is segregated into a small section of the city while white people enjoy kitchy neighborhoods and craft fairs.