'An armed society society is a polite society'

I'm a Londoner who survived living in Houston, plays soccer in Harlem and often braves the sinister suburbs of northern New Jersey with my little girls (they seem strangely nonchalant),so I was struck by this article, America's 'safety catch' from the BBC's N.American editor:

Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?

I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."

This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.

Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.

I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.

I confess a sneaky pleasure at the advertised edginess of London life, tho the truth is more humdrum.

H/T Biased BBC.