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Comment by esquire_900 | Hacker News Reader

* Gun homicide is 44 times less frequent in the Netherlands than in the US: 0.28 / 100K people, per annum in NL, compared to 12.21 in the USA. So, this is much more of an extreme event over there. > The extremity here is that Peter tried to publically persue heavy criminals, and the criminals just decided to play god and have him killed by some lowly guys (speculating here, but quite confidently). A large part of US/UK shooting statistic probably come from muggings, robberies etc., not the criminal underworld deciding they rule the country.

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Apologies for derailing slightly but it's strange that you lump UK in with US there, when the UK rate is even below the NL rate (and among the lowest in the world).

The US is an extreme outlier in this regard.

I don't know if that's true in the UK (and I doubt that coming up with "US/UK" crime statistics makes sense, considering the huge differences between the two countries) but in the USA according to the latest FBI statistics only 10% of homicide victims were killed by unknown assailants, and only 4% were killed in the course of a robbery. Being killed by a stranger in the US is relatively rare. A more significant source of murders is disputes among relatives and acquaintances. The biggest risk factor for becoming a homicide victim in the US is having social connections to known criminals.

This is what's conveniently ignored whenever somebody wants to bring up the US gun homicide rate. The vast majority of it is inner city gang members killing each other with illegally-obtained firearms. Further restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens will not do anything to lower those numbers.

This doesn't agree with the FBI stats, and I'd prefer if you don't contaminate my arguments with 2nd Amendment nonsense. According to the FBI, gang kills are also a tiny cause of homicides. Killings of people by their own spouses are more common.

I haven't "contaminated" anything, so I'd prefer it if you'd stop acting like a reply can't say something you disagree with.

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