Listen to your friends! Stop watching tv news, especially local tv news. According to local tv news *everything* is out to kill you.
+1 to what Jon C. said.
c&p from
http://www.crimeinamerica.net/crime-...united-states/
The summation from the National Crime Survey (cited above) is as follows: “These declines in violent and property victimizations continued a larger trend of decreasing criminal victimization in the United States. In 2010, violent and property victimization rates fell to their lowest levels since the early 1990s. From 1993 to 2010, the violent crime victimization rate decreased 70 percent, dropping steadily from about 50 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 1993 to about 15 per 1,000 in 2010. The property crime victimization rate fell 62 percent, from about 319 victimizations per 1,000 households in 1993 to 120 per 1,000 in 2010.”
From the Associated Press: “Experts are surprised at how much crime is declining as shown in the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, criminologist Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University tells the Associated Press. From 1993 through 2010, the rate of violent crime has declined by a whopping 70 percent: from 49.9 violent crimes per 1,000 persons age 12 or older to only 14.9 per 1,000 in 2010. Half of this decline came between 1993 and 2001. Between 2001 and 2009, violent crime declined at a more modest annual average of 4 percent, but that rate decline jumped to 13 percent in 2010.”