Actually, the guide is for people that take other people's food too critically.

@yankee00: Be careful about cause and effect factors and coming to conclusions about the dynamics of US cops/guns/crime. I did not say less less crime because of anything. That is wholly your false conclusion. I am just reporting on the apparent dynamics in the US over the last ten years vis. crime. While I am strongly pro gun, I am surprised and, frankly, a bit confused by these stats. This topic requires more information and some thinking before concluding anything.

As for education in the US, I think the remarkable dumbing down of US education is a subject for another thread.

Is China safer? Personally, I don't feel much difference between China and SoCal. I feel I have seen more street violence, fights, beatings and groups attacking individuals in China than in the US. But in China I wander naively into all sorts of areas to take photos.

China crime stats are a mystery as this article describes:

www.economist.com/[...]

@tigertiger: I am not sure I agree that crime and crime rate statistic mean very little. You are correct in these stats reflect 'reported' crime. As the US stats are developed from a huge database which has been standardize and the methodology has been consistent for few decades, the collection of data can be considered fairly reliable.

There is no doubt that the actual total crime is greater that the reported crime. I am not confident there exists a valid statistical way of estimating unreported crimes. This moves unreported crimes into the realm of guessing and that guessing is loaded with bias and perception variables. For example, my bias would be that US crime stats are more accurate than China's crime stats.

I would argue that there might not be the same causal reasons for unreported crime in the US and the UK. I am not familiar with UK crime or society so I cannot speak to the reporting/non reporting of UK crimes. However, I would guess violent crimes, including rape, would continue at historical reporting rates.

I am aware of several US dynamics that impact crime and unreported crime. 1) Police say technology advancements and availability; computers, internet, forensic science have improved crime solving, 2) There are today fewer police in the US due to budget cuts and less money, 3) Shared databases facilitate criminal identification, 4) The number of guns in the hands of American civilians has grown substantially, 5) The Federal ban on weapons that look like assault weapons has expired and ownership of these weapons has exploded, and 6) More Americans now have carry permits and are armed. Despite the significant increase in gun ownership, and possession, violent crime involving guns has decreased.

In short: Less cops, more guns, and less crime. Go figure.

New Orleans is not quite the badass city one would like to think. In violent crime it ranks 26th of U.S. cities, behind Anchorage, Boston and Tulsa among others.

Due to recent changes in the law there is a lot of confusion and some foreigners are reporting different experiences. I, for one, am waiting for the Yunnan authorities to get it sorted out. This link has a lot of information:

lawandborder.com/[...]

You might consider this lawyer:

www.gokunming.com/[...]