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The US has five(!) times the murders per capita than France, Germany or the UK.

Sure, a lot of that is probably gang violence, or isolated big events like school shootings.

But just let that fact sink in. Per capita, there are five times as many murders in the US than those “rough” countries. It’s not marginally less safe, it is a whole different league. The US is in between South American or African borderline third-world countries [1] in terms of murders per citizen.

[1]: Granted, murders are probably more often reported and counted in the US than in Angola or Kenia. But still, that we even have to have this argument…

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UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

The US has five(!) times the murders per capita

Roughly 5.75 per 100,000 people/year, versus 1.33 per 100,000. So closer to 4x. But even then, we’re talking about a 0.04% change in incidence.

A bit like saying you’re 5x as likely to win the lottery.

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- LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  France is at around 1.3, Germany at around 0.9, UK somewhere in between, if a quick search is to be trusted.
  
  And I think change in incidence is a weird way to express this. Yes, the average person is not likely to die of homicide, even in “unsafe” countries. But at the same time, the chance of a man to get testicular cancer is around 0.01%; if I would be 5 times as likely to get testicular cancer than the people from other places, I would very much want to look into that.
  
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  - UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    Yes, the average person is not likely to die of homicide, even in “unsafe” countries.
    
    Okay, but that’s it. Full stop. Minor variations don’t say much about these countries.
    
    the chance of a man to get testicular cancer is around 0.01%; if I would be 5 times as likely to get testicular cancer
    
    Then the risk is still microscopic, especially with the variance by neighborhood and income and circumstance.
    
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