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Comment by technothrasher | Hacker News Reader

My great grandfather wrote down some stories of his life in Southern Kansas at the time, and I was always struck by how less exciting it was than you’d think.

He talks about taking a horse and cart alone into Oklahoma “Indian territory” and how he scrounged up an old pistol because he was afraid of being scalped. He spends two nights camped out and every group of native Americans that pass by him just entirely ignores him.

He also talks about going to see the Dalton gang just after their famous shootout, and mentions how it was weird to see the bodies just laid out and people cutting scraps of clothing off them as souvenirs. He said it wasn’t romantic at all, just depressing.

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> He talks about taking a horse and cart alone into Oklahoma “Indian territory” and how he scrounged up an old pistol because he was afraid of being scalped. He spends two nights camped out and every group of native Americans that pass by him just entirely ignores him.

The modern version is people who are afraid of Chicago.

> The modern version is people who are afraid of Chicago.

I thought America has a serious gun problem. Or is it so exaggerated that it is irrational to be afraid of a city that's in or around the top 10 highest rates of gun homicides in the country?

No it's not. Last time I had a vehicle failure in a top 10 city the locals noticed, and put a gun to my head.

You're a straight up moron if you sleep on the streets of Chicago without a weapon. Here's a hint, get on a rooftop, out of sight.

Chicago is not a survival video game. If you are stranded call the police.

The police are not going to come out - Chicago or otherwise - for "my car broke down". You'll wait hours for a five minute dismissive interaction.

You call a tow truck.

Lol maybe in Evanston.

One time this happened to me. But then when they came I used aikido to disarm them whole flipping the gun out of their hands (all of them at the same time). They were so impressed they made me the leader of their primitive tribe and I started collecting resources and completing mini-missions until I became a high enough level to walk through the sewers until I found the final boss and hit the right combo to kill him.

I mean sure but if that doesn't work I have literally taken the el to an industrial district and slept on top of a warehouse, rather than getting picked over by people on the street.

It sounds like your problem is significantly more likely to be "routinely sleeps outside in cities"?

Did you manage to pick up any apples or full-sized rotisserie chickens off the ground to boost your HP? Sometimes they're hidden in trash cans; you have to kick them to find out.

Likening the real violence perpetuated amongst people without shelter in Chicago to some game is absolutely sickening.

Yes, it's irrational. There are rough neighborhoods in any large city, but they're not the sort of area you go touristing in. The shootings that occur there are largely people with existing grudges against each other.

You are far more likely to die in a car accident driving through.

> There are rough neighborhoods in any large city, but they're not the sort of area you go touristing in

I think this is underselling the issue a bit. I lived in Hyde Park and heard shootings on a monthly basis, had a friend shot in an attempted robbery, and in general had a visceral sense of ongoing gun violence around me that I've never had in NYC, SF, Dallas, Austin, Seattle, or any other major American city where I've spent a lot of time.

Sure, Hyde Park is a bit of an anomaly in terms of being both highly violent and having things worth touristing for, but 'any large city has neighborhoods like that' doesn't ring true for me.

> Sure, Hyde Park is a bit of an anomaly in terms of being both highly violent and having things worth touristing for, but 'any large city has neighborhoods like that' doesn't ring true for me.

I live near a ~100k person city and a local legislator (from a very rural district) claimed they wouldn't go into the area without an armored car, to much mockery. My wife, at the meantime, was doing visiting nursing in the same neighborhoods. The worst interaction she had out on the streets was a family laughing (justifiably) at her parallel parking.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/rochester/news/2016/10/28/...

(Same guy was later arrested for wire fraud and bribery. Concern about crime was projection, as is common.)

Every city has these stories. You'll hear gunshots (and there'll be a higher per-capita gun death rate) in rural areas too.

> My wife, at the meantime, was doing visiting nursing in the same neighborhoods

This is how they got to me.

I was working in a hospital in a 'meh' business area surrounded by a high-crime predominantly black neighborhoods. Sure you are generally fine at the hospital, or during day in the surrounding business district, but then you have to drive past that. The population we served noticed when I got a flat tire, because I was the only white face around at ~3am when my shift ended, and they moved in on their prey.

And that's how it works out. The tourist might be ok. The locals have to drive through bad areas sooner or later to work, get something they need, and when their vehicle fails they strike.

> Every city has these stories

If you ignore rates, sure! NYC for example doesn't have near the same level of gun violence

I've lived in Hyde Park and Woodlawn for over 20 years and have never heard a gun shot. I've also never had a friend injured in a violent crime in Hyde Park. I don't feel like there is ongoing gun violence happening around me, and I _have_ felt that way in other places I've been.

The crime stats do not back up that it is particularly dangerous https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/il/chicago/crime.

Everyones lived experience is different and perception of risk is deeply personal. But statistically if Hyde Park is too dangerous for you then no place in Chicago is safe enough.

That’s an extremely low bar, though.

What about being robbed, assaulted or someone breaking into your parked car?

I commented on those statistics here[1], but to summarize, three entire states, not cities within those states, the states themselves, have more violent crime than Chicago.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43905681

If you look at the numbers, in 2023 Chicago there were 23.3 murders/ homicides per 100,000 population, about 0.02% of the population, which is a statistic that totally ignores if there's specific patterns to these homicides.

For perspective, in 2022 42,514 people in the US died in car accidents, which works out to about 0.01% of the population, so about half that rate. Would you say the fear of Chicago is more or less than twice the fear of driving?

Lol having lived in Chicago and Cleveland let me explain how it works.

They're not probably going to kill you. They're going to just take your shit, maybe beat the shit out of you or knock you out if you resist. In my case, I managed to call their bluff and they did not pull the trigger, I punched them and then managed to narrowly get away.

If you live in these rough neighborhoods are you going to call the police, have their jacked up corrupt policeman show up, basically releasing a wild hyena in your home with access to secret torture sites[0]? Just to hear "sorry for your luck, we can write a report and then do nothing about it, but maybe open an investigation on you."

No, you're going to buy a gun/knife, spend some time at the range, be ready for next time, and go on with your life. This shit doesn't show up in the statistics like it would for podunk town.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homan_Square_facility

So you're agreeing that you're not going to get killed?

You're probably not going to get killed in an actual war either, I would still want a gun and worry about what others might do with theirs.

Seems like an extremely low bar?

It would be safe to assume that for every random (non gang related) person who is killed there are many times more assaulted or robbed.

The violent crime rate for Chicago seems to be 639.7 / 100,000[1]. The united states seems to be 380.7 / 100,000[2], so it's not even double the average. This also makes Chicago safer than DC, and the entire states of New Mexico, Alaska, and Arkansas[2]. How many people are scared of going to Alaska due to all the violent crime?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

> there's specific patterns to these homicides

There are specific patterns (albeit probably not as strong) to deaths in car accidents. Why ignore one and not the other?

Totally fair point. I thought about calling it out specifically when I was writing, but I assumed that calling out it in the previous paragraph would also imply it with driving - high mileage or unsafe drivers are going to be more likely to be killed. Does it distract from my overall point, and if so, how does that change things knowing that I'm aware of and conceding the point?

Well, there are ~2.4 million people in Chicago. In the last 12 months there were ~2600 shootings. In a given week, ignoring all other factors your odds of being shot are 1 in 48000. As a visitor you are unlikely to be in higher crime areas where shootings are more likely as well. In short, no, it is probably not something to overly worry about.

There is reason this joke exists

>A friend who has worked in Chicago his entire life tells me it's not that violent. He's a tail gunner on a school bus

Looking at the data - you can spin it either way, because of how the violence is distributed and segregated inside the city.

Yes, the reason is right wing meme boards.

And what is the reason the joke is about Chicago and not Boston? Gallows humor needs something to work with and it seems that Chicago delivers on that.

That joke would be funnier if Chicago was even in the top 10 for violent crime, but it's mostly a joke about how "Chicago" and "Boston" are two of the 4 cities every American can name.

People's perception of violence is exponential in both per capita and geographic density. And Chicago has the blessing of being both being big, dense and violent enough to easily climb the mindshare ladder.

That's a hell of a just-so argument.

> gun problem

Why isn't this a "murder problem?"

Why is a century-old piece of technology you can manufacture in your home workshop (mills and 3D printers aren't regulated yet) in China, Germany, wherever the "problem?"

People in China and Germany largely aren't doing that, though. You've invented a theoretical gun supply issue in response to an actual one.

The US firearm homicide rate is higher than most other countries everything homicide rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

US: 5.763/100k (of which 3-4/100k are firearms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...)

Germany: 0.823/100k

China: 0.502/100k

> Globally, the U.S. ranks at the 93rd percentile for overall firearm mortality, 92nd percentile for children and teens, and 96th percentile for women.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/2024/oct/compa...

We are absolutely abberant if you chart it (the one titled "No Other Rich Western Country Comes Close").

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-...

Funny how you're doing this on a thread about how murder rates are not something to be afraid of. Which one is it? Should we be afraid of Chicago or not?

Several related facts:

* The US has a lot more guns than most other developed countries.

* The US has a lot more murders than most other developed countries.

* Places like Chicago are, statistically, not all that different in this regard from elsewhere in the US.

The US has a murder/firearm problem at a population level. The chances of any randomly selected individual being part of it remains fairly low. We simultaneously should be ashamed of our clear violence problem, and recognize that "and then I started blasting" is not a great response to it.

Focus on "urban" people in Chicago is a misdirection by folks who'd rather not deal with the national-level concerns.

The same people who want you to think Chicago's ~26.9/100k homicide rate is terrifyingly scary want you to think COVID's ~279/100k was not.

Your own stats

>US: 5.763/100k (of which 3-4/100k are firearms)

>Chicago's ~26.9/100k homicide rate

So Chicago has a ~5x increase over the national average homicide rate and you're calling guns a "national-level concern".

Can you help me understand why I should have gun control in my ~2.6/100k county just because Chicago has 10x that rate?

Sure.

Chicago's guns come from outside Chicago; it's surrounded by very permissive jurisdictions. (Trump supporters like to call this sort of issue "open borders".)

Your county's seemingly "low" rate is 5x that of China (0.5/100k), 3x that of Germany (0.8/100k), double the city of London (1.4/100k). It's abberantly high still, by international standards.

Why don't you compare the US to Nigeria, Brazil, or Pakistan? Those are more in-line with US population size than Germany, London, or China

> Why don't you compare the US to Nigeria, Brazil, or Pakistan?

Because we are in the developed world, and "at least we're better than Pakistan" is probably not the highest of bars we should aspire to as a country?

> Those are more in-line with US population size than Germany, London, or China

The EU, if you prefer - similar size, population, state+federal(ish) makeup, developed world, mix of wealthy and poorer jurisdictions, etc. - has a 0.86/100k rate.

> is probably not the highest of bars we should aspire to

Keep going on this. Why is the US inherently better than Pakistan/Nigeria/Brazil?

Inherently? Nah.

Historically? Colonialism.

Currently? Yeah, I'd rather live here in the developed world.

Because the numbers we are citing here have been divided by population size.

It's likely that population size/density can't be abstracted away by normalizing figures since those are actually factors leading to population violence/governance.

Why would a resident of a populous country be significantly more likely to kill than a resident of a small country?

No idea, but look at the homicide rate or Wyoming (590k, 2.6/100k) vs that of any similarly-populated US city: Baltimore (576k, 58/100k), Albuquerque (562k, 21/100k), Fresno (544k, 13/100k).

Now, do the same with similarly sized cities and regions in the developed world - the EU, for example.

You’ll find dramatically lower rates for comparable populations.

Yes, it is widely known that population density increases the homicide rate. However your first comment in this thread asserted that it is illogical or improper to compare (the homicide rate in) the US to Germany or China on the grounds that the one has a much smaller total population than the US and that the other has a much larger total population, and you have added nothing that supports those 2 assertions.

If every country in the world had the same area as every other country, then you could draw a line from total population to population density, but of course that is not the case.

Despite emphasizing “city of London”, the stats you are citing seem to be those of Metropolitan London (for which stats are relatively easily locatable), not the City of London (for which this particular stat is harder to find, but overall has much lower crime than Metropolitan London.)

The city of London is Metropolitan London. The Big-C City of London is the little bit mostly fascinating to those of us who go down Wikipedia rabbit holes. I didn't capitalize it for a reason; I emphasize its being a city because it's useful in the "well that's because the stats are for entire countries" aspect of things.

Big cities in Europe are largely safer statistically than even the low-crime areas of the US.

The vast majority of gun crime in America is between impoverished people who know each other. If you don’t spend time with people who shoot other people, you’re unlikely to get shot.

Chicago isn't in the top ten. You'd think it was the absolute worst the way conservatives talk about it. How many people terrified of Chicago don't have the same feelings about St Louis or Cleveland or Kansas City or Philadelphia all which are examples of cities with higher murder rates than Chicago?

>The modern version is people who are afraid of Chicago

Gun control advocates?

Unless Republicans have suddenly found a love for gun control, no.

"You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what's going on in Detroit and other, other cities, all Democrat run..." - Trump

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...

"All over the world, they’re talking about Chicago. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison. (Laughter.) It’s true."

(It isn't.)

Black Chicagoans.

That's really interesting in its own way (ie, non-exciting vs stories maybe, but really fascinating.) Have you thought of digitising it and putting it online?

I did indeed transcribe them all digitally to preserve them. Most of them probably would only be interesting to the family. The only other one that has general interest was his time as a water fetcher and firewood collector during the gathering before the Oklahoma Land Rush.

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