Cyprus-Forum.com

[Novus]

The world would be a better place without guns. But I must admit that there are places in the US I would never visit unless I had a gun... or an Uzi and some grenades... or why not a private army à la Blackwater to back me up.

have you been to the USA? i have been all over, and have felt pretty secure and safe, even when in the bronx at night!

i think all you insecure men with your toys would be alot better off if you stopped watching all those horror and action movies.

Walk down the streets of South East Washington DC at night and then come back and see if you say that again.
Even on the DC National Mall the DC congresswoman said she is afraid to walk there at night.
Supreme Court Justice Souter was mugged on his own street in DC while out jogging and he lives in the rich part of town.
In Baltimore there is a violent crime for every 65 people. If you know 65 people in Baltimore, then every year it is likely at least one of them will be violently robbed, raped, assaulted or murdered.
George Bush's daughter Jenna just moved to one of the nicer neighborhoods in downtown, and since she has moved there a few months ago there has been something like four murders, ten stabbings and numerous assaults all within about five blocks.....she is lucky because she has an armed body guard though.

The horror and action I see is the local news on TV and it is no movie.

[GorillaGal]

The world would be a better place without guns. But I must admit that there are places in the US I would never visit unless I had a gun... or an Uzi and some grenades... or why not a private army à la Blackwater to back me up.

have you been to the USA? i have been all over, and have felt pretty secure and safe, even when in the bronx at night!

i think all you insecure men with your toys would be alot better off if you stopped watching all those horror and action movies.

I understand what you are saying GG, but a few years ago I used to watch "crime watch UK" which admittedly focused on the more violent/nasty crimes. At the end of the programme the male presenter used to say that violent crimes are relatively rare and "don't have nightmares". Then his female co-host Jill dando was shot dead outside her London home.............Guns have and always will be available to those with money, even in so called "gun-less" societies - its the world we live in sadly.........

sad, indeed. but one person dies from guns out of how many? a million? those stats are good enough for me not to live life in fear of getting hit by a bullet in my lifetime. much more likely i get run over by a drunk driver while i am out walking dogs. and yet how many on this forum is guilty of having even one drink and getting behind the wheel of a car?

[GorillaGal]

The world would be a better place without guns. But I must admit that there are places in the US I would never visit unless I had a gun... or an Uzi and some grenades... or why not a private army à la Blackwater to back me up.

have you been to the USA? i have been all over, and have felt pretty secure and safe, even when in the bronx at night!

i think all you insecure men with your toys would be alot better off if you stopped watching all those horror and action movies.

Walk down the streets of South East Washington DC at night and then come back and see if you say that again.
Even on the DC National Mall the DC congresswoman said she is afraid to walk there at night.
Supreme Court Justice Souter was mugged on his own street in DC while out jogging and he lives in the rich part of town.
In Baltimore there is a violent crime for every 65 people. If you know 65 people in Baltimore, then every year it is likely at least one of them will be violently robbed, raped, assaulted or murdered.
George Bush's daughter Jenna just moved to one of the nicer neighborhoods in downtown, and since she has moved there a few months ago there has been something like four murders, ten stabbings and numerous assaults all within about five blocks.....she is lucky because she has an armed body guard though.

The horror and action I see is the local news on TV and it is no movie.

what you see and hear about on the news only makes it look like a war zone. if you talk to real reporters, they will always tell you that the media portays a minute area, the rest of the places they are covering are nothing like what you see on TV or in the news. you are educated enough to know that bad news travels more than good news. no one wants to hear that nothing bad happened in town today, and that there were dozens of really good deeds and stories to tell. people like to focus on the bad. of course if you focus on the bad, that is all you are going to see.
the media is evil!

[Novus]

hey bub, i live in the usa. i live in NY's 6th largest city. or is it 4th? anyway,....how many times have you been victim of a crime? of a violent crime? and don't go pushing your stats on me. there is a big difference in the amount of crimes because we have a larger country, bigger population, more people per capita or however that goes. of course stats are gonna be high. but i would rather live here than anywhere else in the world. and i feel very safe here.

Hey lady, New York City is pretty safe nowadays I hear, don't think just because YOU are safe that the rest of us are too. I live in a state that is ranked as the third or fourth most dangerous in the nation and I live in the county with the second highest density of violent crime in the state. Not all of us live where it is peachy keen.
And yes, I have been the victim of a violent crime, I have been shot at and I watched a man shot to death before my eyes. So don't patronize me saying I have nothing to fear from violent crime.

Would I walk down the streets of the Bronx in the middle of the night? Sure, and I would not feel in much danger. Would I walk down the streets of downtown Baltimore more than five blocks in a row without fearing for my life or safety at least once?.....impossible.

There are parts of Maryland I would fear getting attacked by a coyote or a bear before I would worry about being attacked by a person, and in others I worry more about being the victim of a violent crime than I am about getting hit by a car while crossing a busy street.

[Novus]

The world would be a better place without guns. But I must admit that there are places in the US I would never visit unless I had a gun... or an Uzi and some grenades... or why not a private army à la Blackwater to back me up.

have you been to the USA? i have been all over, and have felt pretty secure and safe, even when in the bronx at night!

i think all you insecure men with your toys would be alot better off if you stopped watching all those horror and action movies.

Walk down the streets of South East Washington DC at night and then come back and see if you say that again.
Even on the DC National Mall the DC congresswoman said she is afraid to walk there at night.
Supreme Court Justice Souter was mugged on his own street in DC while out jogging and he lives in the rich part of town.
In Baltimore there is a violent crime for every 65 people. If you know 65 people in Baltimore, then every year it is likely at least one of them will be violently robbed, raped, assaulted or murdered.
George Bush's daughter Jenna just moved to one of the nicer neighborhoods in downtown, and since she has moved there a few months ago there has been something like four murders, ten stabbings and numerous assaults all within about five blocks.....she is lucky because she has an armed body guard though.

The horror and action I see is the local news on TV and it is no movie.

what you see and hear about on the news only makes it look like a war zone. if you talk to real reporters, they will always tell you that the media portays a minute area, the rest of the places they are covering are nothing like what you see on TV or in the news. you are educated enough to know that bad news travels more than good news. no one wants to hear that nothing bad happened in town today, and that there were dozens of really good deeds and stories to tell. people like to focus on the bad. of course if you focus on the bad, that is all you are going to see.
the media is evil!

Oh please!
I have seen violent crime in front of me with my own eyes to know how common it is. You are wrong about our local news because it is so damn common down here now that when someone is murdered, raped or severely beaten it gets maybe a half minute mention on the news and that is it. They do not report the tens of thousands of other aggravated assaults, car jackings (except for when someone dies or a baby is in the backseat), or muggings. Those have no shock value anymore because down here we have become so caloused to them.
By the way, I also saw someone stabbed and nearly die less than two miles from my house in broad daylight in a strip mall....and I live in the SAFE part of the county.

It is pretty sad when half the time you see a murder mentioned is only on the police blotter page at the back of a section of the city's paper. Murders don't make front page anymore unless it is particularly horrific, someone important, or where it happens. For the poor neighborhood killing of an old lady it might get an article on page one of the local's section, but not the front page of the first section.

[Agios Ionas]

there is a big difference in the amount of crimes because we have a larger country, bigger population, more people per capita or however that goes. of course stats are gonna be high. but i would rather live here than anywhere else in the world. and i feel very safe here.

Of course the amount of crimes committed will increase with the amount of people living in a certain area. If 1% (just a number for arguments sake) of a population are likely to be criminals the US would have 2.9 million criminals, the UK 600000, Sweden 80000 and Cyprus 8000.

But...

This doesn't change the fact that the US has a higher rate of violent crimes (read murders) than most countries in the EU looking at murders per capita.

Colombia, South Africa and Jamaica are the top 3 countries to avoid if you hold your life dear. The USA is ranked at #24. Not that bad perhaps. But keep in mind that the UK, which people emigrate from because of violent crimes, is ranked at #46. Sweden and Cyprus are not even on the list. And there is enough horrible stuff happening in Sweden to make people worried about the future.

Some numbers although you didn't want them:

Colombia - 0.617847 murders per 1000 people
South Africa - 0.496008 per 1,00 people
Jamaica - 0.324196 per 1000 people

And as you can see the USA looks like heaven compared to the above:

USA - 0.042802 per 1000 people

But look at the UK:

0.0140633 per 1000 people

And Greece:

0.0075928 per 1000 people

Big difference between the US and the UK to begin with. But compared to Greece the US certainly looks like a hellhole to be avoided if you don't want to be a number in these statistics. Judging from these numbers the USA has an average of 124126 murders every year. That's a lot, even if there are 290 million of you.

Sweden has a population of about 9 million. In the late 80's/early 90's there was about 120 to 150 murders/year. Since 2000 until today it's been about 200 murders each year.... at least a 50% increase in the last 10-20 years.

How many murders are there in the whole of Cyprus in a year? Let's make it easy for us and say there's 1 million people living in Cyprus. How many murders do you think there is?

Using the statistics for the USA there would be 42-43 murders/year in the USA if you only had a population of 1 million. I seriously doubt the numbers for Cyprus would even come close to that.

If Sweden was as bad as the USA (using the statistics above) we would have 385 murders every year. So my conclusion is that the US is almost twice as dangerous as Sweden if you hold your life dear. And according to the UN Quatar is the safest spot on earth.

[GorillaGal]

i find it very sad that people...good people...have to go through life scared of a bunch of stats.

[Agios Ionas]

I find it very sad that so many Americans are unable to see the faults with their own country but so eager to point out the shortcomings of others. You'll remain the biggest, the best and the bravest until the bitter end won't you?

For the record, I'm not scared of a bunch of stats. But I'm smart enough to acknowledge that the stats actually reflect something... the reality. It's not like someone made a list with random numbers just because he/she had nothing better to do. You have more murders per capita than so many other countries, why not admit that there is something wrong?

[RRichie]

I spent 2 weeks in Atlanta Georgia and never felt safe at night, I asked a barman at my hotel the directions to a decent bar and when I set of walking he was horrified and insisted on getting me a taxi saying it was to dangerous to walk the short distance.

[Feisty]

I spent 2 weeks in Atlanta Georgia and never felt safe at night, I asked a barman at my hotel the directions to a decent bar and when I set of walking he was horrified and insisted on getting me a taxi saying it was to dangerous to walk the short distance.

At the risk of making the thread into the usual the same could be said of Istanbul.