[ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas

Gary Miller aiguy at comcast.net
Sun Jan 6 18:06:03 UTC 2008


Spike said: >> "Tourists do not need such a map in the states, for it isn't
really a particular religion to avoid.  If a tourist vacations here, anyone
anywhere might shoot her." >>

I realize this was meant as sarcasm but it does perpetuate a myth...

According to the Wikipedia murder rates in the US are down a good bit since
the 1990's.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate 

It looks to be from the list that there are at least 43 countries with
higher murder rates than the United States.

And many countries either under report or do not report rates at all like
China.

Open societies with their sensationalist reporting coverage often look a lot
more dangerous than other parts of the world where hundreds of unknown
murder victims may be covered in one mass grave not to mention all the other
missing persons who were buried and never found.

It's hard to know where the United States stands in terms of overall safety,
but I hate to see the myths about tourists being in grave danger here being
perpetuated.

That being said.  Because of gang and drug problems the large urban areas
like Washington DC and New York City have much higher murder rates than your
average American city due to drug related killings and gang violence.

Also the definition of murder changes from country to country.

For instance in the US people killed by drunk drivers are often counted as
murder victims if their killers acted in utter recklessness or wantonness
and in some cases they are convicted of first degree murder. 

http://www.dui1.com/Dui_Lawyers_Driving8.htm

Also from Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_Driving

"Comparisons with other Countries
The USA has one of the worst DUI driving accident rates in the developed
world while having lower to mid-range rates of alcohol consumption.

The UK has a DUI accident rate less than half the USA, higher alcohol
consumption per capita and more or less unlimited 24 hour access to alcohol
for teenagers. The crime of DUI manslaughter does not exist in legislations
outside the USA and the sentence of causing death by dangerous driving is
correspondingly lower, usually 3-4 years for a first offence."

The question is do we have a higher number of DUI's or do we just enforce
the prosecution of this crime on a more regular basis.

Since the US has started to seriously crack down on drunk drivers in the
1990's a much greater number of DUIs resulting in fatalities are prosecuted
as, and therefore reported as murders, as they should be. 

But if other countries do not do this or prosecute as such then their murder
rates would be grossly understated compared to ours.
















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