COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Some perspective.
Below is the link for a site examining American violent
crime statistics, ones just for the city of Chicago.
While the illustrations are cartoonish, the data are
authoritative, and the authors have created some bizarrely interesting
comparisons.
I do not ever defend for a moment what violent police have
done, but the truth is America is such a hopelessly violent place that I'm sure
most British people cannot imagine it.
Remember "the troubles" of Northern Ireland? Well,
Chicago and many other American urban centers experience something like that on
a perpetual basis.
Newspaper talk about terrorists almost seems trivial when
compared to the year-in, year-out realities of a place like Chicago (or Detroit
or Newark or New Orleans or Washington or a lot of other American places).
Study the site a bit, and you will gain some insight into
what makes American police fearful themselves.
It is also what truly drives America's ongoing relationship
with guns, something rarely spoken of in gun-control debates.
