hypothetically, if you could, as a tourist buy a gun to protect yourself (from the locals), would you and should you?

No.

I spent a couple of months in one of the seedier parts of LA a few years back.

No.

No.

rich pips we seem to get told that guns are everywhere, did you see any? i’d like to go to the states, yellow stone, washington etc but put off a bit…

Saw plenty of guns in NY. But that was the police…

No.

But if I had the time Id go to a range to ping some off 🙂

Folk don’t tend to carry them around openly – at least not in the towns I’ve been in. It was a bit of an eye-opener popping in to a sports shop and seeing them lined up on the wall though. At the time I visited, it wasn’t possible to just buy one as a tourist, they had a pretty strict policy that you had to have lived there for a month first 🙄

rich pips we seem to get told that guns are everywhere, did you see any? i’d like to go to the states, yellow stone, washington etc but put off a bit…

My hosts told me that all the guys hanging around on the street corner had them. Never saw one though.

Like anywhere go to the nice places and avoid the dodgy areas and unless you are very unlucky no one is going to shoot you.

You with your gun (if you could get one) and newb skillz would lose in a gunfight.

It’s not rocket science, is it?

If a mugger is gonna steal all your possessions, they might beat you up a bit first. If they think you have a gun they’re gonna shoot you first.

gonna

At least you have the patois for it onion 😉

anyway, It’s scarier up your neck of the woods…

http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/12/uk-murder-rate-higher-than-some-us-states/

What a bizarre way to show that data. Doesn’t the US have 50 states?

Stoner
> gonna
At least you have the patois for it onion

That’ll completely fool them.

I think the idea was the emphasis that “some” of the states are safer than the Barlinnie front gates…

From the foreign office website.

Around 5.5 million British nationals visit the United States every year (Source: US Department of Homeland Security). Most visits are trouble-free. …. 01 April 2011 – 31 March 2012 for the following types of incident: 210 deaths

It doesn’t say if those people just died or came to an end via other means.

Elsewhere I saw a 1/600,000 death/visitor rate for Florida, though old data.

we seem to get told that guns are everywhere

By whom?

we seem to get told that guns are everywhere

By whom?

Normally by each other, it would appear.

No. Even if you were likely to be attacked in some way (you’re not), most likely it’ll happen in a way that a gun will be useless or worse than useless anyway (ie, you pull it while being mugged, and get shot).

And you won’t know how to use it effectively either, nor be psychologically prepared to use it.

All in all, a total liability.

Wot Northwind said.

That graph is total rubbish isn’t it. England is a country and inludes the capital and most people in England live in Urban areas. Scotland again is mainly urban in terms of population. The states listed will have huge rural populations.

But no I wouldn’t buy a gun. I only really twice felt unsafe in the US and I’m fairly sure that a gun could have made things worse

If a US citzien buys a gun for protection it is 6 times more likley to be used to shoot a friend or neighbour than for protection

I’ve been to the US at least 10 or 11 times now (mostly for work).

Of the probably 60 or so people I’ve been with on various trips, I’ve only known one gun incident – they went jogging in Atlanta, and obviously went into a neighbourhood that was a bit less tourist friendly than some, and were told by a man brandishing a gun that they should turn round now and go back to where they’d come from, followed by shooting a bullet over their heads as they returned the way they came, at more of a run than a jog to say the least.

Really, it is very segregated by area (even by state as the graphs above show), so other than random nutters, as long as you stay out of the dodgy areas you’ll probably be fine. The only thing that I am aware of in US cities is that the distance between pretty safe tourist area and proper scary dodgy area, can be extremely small, like a couple of blocks walk, and when an area is dodgy, it can be way more dodgy than most UK dodgy areas. I’ve been caught out a couple of times having an explore and had to hurry back to a well lit street!

Having said that, Europe can be scary too – scariest place I’ve been for that has to be Athens in Greece – literally 100 metres from lovely tourist cafés to a street full of smackheads literally cooking it up on spoons and foil on the street corner.

I’ve lived in the US for three years now, and in one of the more dangerous states according to that pathetic graph up there.

And in summary, NO, I wouldn’t buy a gun. I don’t know anyone that owns one, I never see them out and about, even when I head to the big city for a night out, or walk through the scary mexican neighborhoods looking for some good tamales.

I ride my bike all over the place, at night alone, walking wherever and whenever I want and not once have I felt like having a gun would do me any good. Think about it – if a gangster with a gun stops you, is he going to be scared by a 65 kg white boy with his arm shaking whilst pointing the gun he’s never fired?

and P.S. Yellowstone is absolutely fantastic. Enjoy your trip.

Kitz_Chris – the thing is that the graph cherry-picks the safest states. To give you an idea, the average for the whole of the US is 4.7.

hypothetically, if you could, as a tourist buy a gun to protect yourself (from the locals), would you and should you?

should have said hypothetically if you were going to the states. i’m not, but quite fancy it, just put off by THE AMERICANS, who are all mad, as a small minded british bloke who believes what happens in the movies