Looking at crime rates alone, it does not have extraordinarily high levels of serious crime per capita.
Doesn’t it? I remember gun control arguments from years back where people would note the US’s high murder rate compared to Canada and other similar countries with more restricted gun ownership. Then someone would bring up Switzerland which has wide gun ownership and low crime.
I would consider the US rate high, it’s around 4 times that of Australia or Western and Central Europe, 3 times that of Canada, and over 2.5 times that of New Zealand, but agreed it’s not that relevant.
Doesn’t it? I remember gun control arguments from years back where people would note the US’s high murder rate compared to Canada and other similar countries with more restricted gun ownership. Then someone would bring up Switzerland which has wide gun ownership and low crime.
Homicide rates by country. US has higher homicide rate than Europe but nothing unusual.
Switzerland only has high gun “ownership” when you include military weapons with sealed ammo nobody is allowed to use in their own free time outside regulated places. Recently they don’t even give people sealed ammo. And rifles in any case are pretty useless in crimes, just as are hunting guns (see Canada). Handgun ownership is the key statistics, and that’s why US has higher violent crime rate, which is pretty immaterial here anyway since vast majority of prisoners are there for non-violent crimes.
Thanks for the link to homicide rates, upvoted.
I would consider the US rate high, it’s around 4 times that of Australia or Western and Central Europe, 3 times that of Canada, and over 2.5 times that of New Zealand, but agreed it’s not that relevant.