I only read the first two posts, so I apologize if I'm beating a dead horse at this time, but...
Crime is actually been on the decline since around the mid 90's. Check the FBI's unified crime report or the NCVS and you will see that both show a downward trend as far as violent crime is concerned. Why this is is anybody's guess, but the aging of babyboomers out of the high-crime risk age range, the legalization of abortion and the stabilization of the crack market have all been correlated with the decline of violent crime rate. It seems that America is actually more safe now than, say, 15 years ago. Of course this is on an aggregate level and individual experience varies, but overall things aren't so bad.
Crime is actually been on the decline since around the mid 90's. Check the FBI's unified crime report or the NCVS and you will see that both show a downward trend as far as violent crime is concerned. Why this is is anybody's guess, but the aging of babyboomers out of the high-crime risk age range, the legalization of abortion and the stabilization of the crack market have all been correlated with the decline of violent crime rate. It seems that America is actually more safe now than, say, 15 years ago. Of course this is on an aggregate level and individual experience varies, but overall things aren't so bad.