[joshuahedlund]

Just something to keep in mind when comparing statistics between countries... The United States is approximately the size/population of Europe, and its individual states are approximately the size/population of European countries. It's always hard for the US to beat every state-sized country, just as there will always be US states with numbers above and below the overall average. The overall European average of 3.5 per 100,000 is somewhat less impressive.

[anu_gupta]

That European average is for the whole of the geographical entity known as Europe, so I'm not sure how fair the comparison is. The population of Europe as a whole is 2.3 times that of the US. Also the US is a single political entity, with (for the most part) ons set of laws. Many of the Eastern European countries do not fall within a similarly consistent legal framework.

If remove Eastern Europe, then the homicide rates for the rest of Europe are:

Northern Europe 1.5

Southern Europe 1.4

Western Europe 1.0

Conversely, including other parts of the Americas (ie Canada and Central America) massively increases the average homicide rate - Central America's rate is a truly shocking 28.5

[flyinRyan]

So next time someone trots out the US being the largest economy on earth, I can use your same argument? We should be comparing all of Europe to the US since that's more realistic, right?