Well stuff almost happened to me in Fairfax County VA and Newark DE, both areas with much lower violent crime rates than South Chicago. Particularly as a white mid-upper-class male who carries a laptop in his backpack I'd be a target in South Chicago. How about you take a walk through it and find out if you're so sure?

And those countries that article lists are the definition of apples to oranges when compared to the United States. The economic, cultural, gun ownership rate and racial situations are completely, utterly different. To use the logic that something works in any of those countries, particularly Iceland, therefore it'll work in the United states if just blindly applied, is the height of ignorance.

I've walked around Chicago drunk plenty of times. There is nothing to be afraid of. I grew up in Fairfax County, and have been in Newark plenty of times and if you're worried about stuff happening to you there I don't know what to tell you. I lived in downtown Wilmington and Baltimore and never felt the need to be armed. (These days I kind of do but mainly for when Maryland decides to secede from the union.)

I'm not "worried" about stuff happening anywhere on a day-to-day, just acknowledging that stuff CAN happen anywhere, and statistically it's much more likely to happen in areas with worse crime rates. Same way I don't actively "worry" about getting in a car crash when I'm driving, but I still wear a seat-belt despite having never been in a major accident.

As has been explained to you by two different residents, you are not in fact a target in "South Chicago", which is, by the way, not the same thing as "The South Side Of Chicago", where you are also not a target.

People of a particular political persuasion who do not live in Chicago (and, probably, many people of that persuasion who do) like to believe that violence in Chicago is motivated by race or class. In fact, white dudes carrying laptop bags are not the natural adversaries of the people doing the shooting in Chicago.

I think you should stop talking about Chicago now; the examples you've provided, all of them poor, are not making your arguments more persuasive.

So no one steals laptops/phones/wallets from vulnerable people walking through the worst parts of Chicago? As I said before, that's legitimately interesting if true. Would be nice to see some sort of motivation-based breakdown of crime, not sure if those numbers exist.

You're as likely to get mugged in Chicago as you are in any big city. You saw the bet I offered downthread. If you think I'm wrong, take it.

What I won't let you do is move the goalposts. You invoked "south Chicago" as a symbol of urban violence so great that a person like yourself couldn't function in it unarmed. That was bogus on several different levels, only a few of which we've described so far.

I'm not going to read the article, but I predict that those countries are ones with fewer guns per capita than the US. This is an easy bet to make, because the US has wayyyy more guns than any other country.

Maybe read the article? Some of the countries on the list are disarmed (UK, Ireland). Some (Iceland, Norway) have quite a lot of guns.

Ha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

Norway has 31.3 guns per capita. Iceland has 30.3. The US has 112.6.

Sure, that's fewer than the US, but it's still quite a lot in absolute terms. It's high enough rate where a cop would routinely encounter armed people.

"These numbers do not clarify which percentage of the population owns those guns." from the very same source. You cannot reliably draw conclusions about the likelihood of encountering an armed citizen.