Typical American conservatwitism...
Here's some homicide rates for you all to digest...
TEN WORST LARGE U.S. CITIES FOR MURDER, 2002 (from
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html):
(Homicides PER 100,000)
(1) Washington, DC 45.8
(2) Detroit 42.0
(3) Baltimore 38.3
(4) Memphis 24.7
(5) Chicago 22.2
(6) Philadelphia 19.0
(7) Columbus 18.1
(8) Milwaukee 18.0
(9) Los Angeles 17.5
(10) Dallas 15.8
TEN SAFEST LARGE CITIES FOR MURDER, 2002:
(Homicides PER 100,000)
(1) Honolulu 2.0
(2) El Paso 2.4
(3) San Jose 3.1
(4) Austin 3.7
(5) San Diego 3.8
(6) Portland 3.9
(7) Seattle 4.5
(8) New York 7.3
(9) San Francisco 7.3
(10) Oklahoma City 8.5
Canadian large cities 2002 homicde rates, (pop. 500,000 or more) from
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/.../d031001a.htm:
(Homicides PER 100,000)
Winnipeg 3.41
Vancouver 3.26
Edmonton 2.79
Hamilton 1.97
Montréal 1.87
Toronto 1.80
Calgary 1.52
Ottawa3 0.93
Québec 0.44
So, the murder rate in Toronto is well below average for a large Canadian city. Murder rates are 8-25 times higher in the worst U.S. cities than in Toronto. If Toronto were grouped with U.S. statistics, it would be the safest large city in the U.S. In fact, Winnipeg, which had the highest murder rate in Canada, would have been the 4th safest U.S. city in 2002!
Of course, the same American right-wing that's trying to ban Internet poker is too dumb to know better.
Yes, there is a problem, and we must get this gun violence under control, and, yes, ONE murder is too many. But it is absolutely ridiculous to say that Toronto is "like any big American city", or like Iraq (!). Let's put this in perspective, people!