Sounds more like paranoia type fear from news reports and stories than actually looking at real life. As Pulaski said, it's mainly the bad neighborhoods that have the shootings.

If it helps, lots of schools have an on-campus police officer. At least that is how it is here. Police officer on site at the school as a safety measure for all kinds of crime not just guns.

Don't let your fear control you. I understand it is different when you have kids, but having this constant fear of firearms isn't going to help you or your kids if you decide to move to the US.

I moved from outer West London to GA and can honestly say there is no difference in my experience of gun violence, and general crime is far less here.

Of course "dramatic" events can affect our impressions. I have had co-workers saying it must be awful living in England with all this terrorism and fires everywhere! (ie London Bridge and the London tower block fire).

Remember 16 children were killed in the Dunblane school shooting.

Yes there are bad areas here, just as in England, mainly in and around the major cities but there are vast areas where there is minimal risk and crime. Frankly I am far more concerned about being killed by maniacal drivers than any gun violence.

And stay away from charity baseball practices / politicians / gang members.

One thing that is a major problem is lack of firearm education. I raised this with local politicians and police and nobody seems to care about children. Children in the US are a disposable commodity unfortunately, just like homeless / mentally ill people.

This is also shown by the amount of family time employers/ legislatures give to allow parents to raise their kids in a loving environment.

Of course you can educate your child on gun handling. You can hopefully afford to spend time with your kids and live in a good neighborhood. There is a lot you can do yourself to mitigate the issues.

Gun ownership does seem to keep home invasions down. There are very few burglaries.

I would agree drivers are more of a problem. Fatigued and drunk driving is not frowned upon like it is in the UK. For example my employer had now concerns about making me commute 5 hours for a 9 am meeting and working a full day. Most UK companies would put you up the night before or pay for a plane ticket.

We get plenty of scary critters here on the east coast and usually across the US - black widows and brown recluse spiders, rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cotton mouths, further south from us, and obviously in Florida there are 'gators and crocs, not to mention invasive pythons and monitor lizards. Then there are bears, and panthers too.

Most "gated communities" aren't at all what you might think - they are public roads, and so pretty much anyone can get in either directly ("buzzed in" by a homeowner), or tailgate in behind another vehicle. Even if there is a guard he will wave through vehicles like UPS vans, and mail delivery vehicles, not to mention garbage collection, which is often staffed with ex-convicts.

FWIW Florida seems to have more than its share of crazies - and there was a workplace shooting in Florida, in fact right there in Orlando, just a couple of weeks ago, when a disgruntled ex-employee came back and killed five people. One year ago this week there was the worst mass shooting in US history - in Orlando!

Then there's the drivers and the standard of driving, and that drunk driving is quite common. The US has five times the population of the US, but currently around twenty times (approx 36,000 v 1,800) the number of road deaths!

I noticed shortly after moving here 14 years ago that an almost identical news report appears in the media pretty much every week. The report appears in the news because the driver died. ..... The report reads that the driver drove off the side of the road and either (a) hit a tree, or (b) over corrected and came back onto the road then either (a) drove into an oncoming vehicle, or (b) went off the other side of the road .... and hit a tree. The conclusion is always the same! A friend in Florida used to be a cop down there - and he said it's exactly the same in Florida, except that a body of water (ditch, pond, creek, lake, canal, etc.) takes the place of the tree, and the car occupants drown rather than being crushed, burned, or flung from the vehicle.

This report still appears pretty much every week. It's just relentless carnage on the roads here.

Yes it does seem that Florida has a disproportionate amount of whackos in comparison to the rest of the country. Not sure I'd want to live there.

My wife is from the Florida Panhandle. I think it is a nice place and very pretty. The people are no more 'whackos' than in the UK. The people have always been very friendly to me, and the house prices/standard of living is great. From what I can tell, house prices is Australia are insane.

To the OP, as Pulaski points out the gun crime and murders are mostly gang-related black-on-black violence. Most of the places such as Chicago where this occurs have strict gun laws that are ignored. This video piece on Chicago is from the BBC and explains the problem:

In a heavily armed country, where weapons are freely available both legally and illegally, the idea that you can keep one city safe in the middle of all with a law is absurd, and equally provides no proof that "banning guns" "doesn't work". It would be like trying to ban sausage rolls in Birmingham, when the entire rest of the country is awash in sausage rolls.

That's the same problem Europe has, hence the difference between the Paris attacks and the London attacks.

One word of caution, unless absolutely necessary, do not call the Police if you are having domestic issues with a family member. There are multiple instance of teenagers getting shot by police when they are having issues at home and the police are called.

The media and Internet have a lot to do with the perception of violence. Nowadays, if there's a shooting in San Francisco or Virginia, it is instantly blasted across the world.

If you ask anyone in America about Dunblane or Hungerford or Myra Hindley, the Birmingham pub bombings, Yorkshire Ripper, you'll get a blank look.

30 years ago, these incidents happened but were never publicized in the way they are today.

I feel safer where I live now than I would in England. I own guns for protection (we have bears in our area) and always carry when walking the dog but rarely otherwise.

I don't know anyone (in the US) that has been burgled or had their car stolen or even had anything taken from outside their home. We regularly get stuff delivered that is left on our doorstep but has NEVER been stolen. I was burgled several times in the UK. I even had my milk stolen from the doorstep. Barely a day goes by when I don't see some post on Facebook (in the UK) along the lines of "Please share. Some B@ST@RD stole my car/motorcycle/caravan from outside my house".

I'm sure you've seen the videos at Christmas of huge elaborate displays outside peoples homes. Those wouldn't last 5 minutes in the UK. Most places in the US people wouldn't think twice about leaving stuff outside.

I honestly believe that the gun culture is a major reason for the low incidence of petty crime in the US. They don't break in to houses because they may get shot.

Pulaski beat me to it, but you're more likely to be killed by a bad driver than gun crime. I thoroughly enjoy shooting sports and have recently started shooting clays. It's a great way to get out and enjoy the outdoors. Also, if you have a small amount of common sense, you shouldn't have any encounters with the many "whackos" who generally give gun ownership a bad name.

But the underlying societal issue is that the gun violence is, at least anecdotally much worse in Chicago than most other cities, when even allowing for totally permeable city limits, other things being equal, the problem in Chicago should approximately the same as in other cities. ..... Also even in Chicago the violence isn't equally spread across the whole city.

Even taking out gang crime, there are still more murders than the UK. Several people have been shot and killed just miles from my house and I live in a low crime area nowhere near the ghetto. The perpetrators could both be put down as nutcases. Nearly all local crime is petty property theft, usually from cars, no burglaries or home invasions, so no one here needs a gun to protect themselves. On the other hand, far fewer pub fights and knifings.

All risk is relative, you are still more likely to get killed in a car accident from the airport than shot. It would just be nice if the NRA would try to enforce safety with legislation rather than promote gun sales with fear.

Violence is, as a rule, concentrated in areas of poverty. And that is worldwide and irrespective of pretty much any other factor other than war.

I've seen plenty of guns here, in the hands of children and teenagers - but all in the low-income areas where I used to live and which I left when I fell pregnant so that I could keep my child as safe as possible.

But I don't feel fear walking around the city, in any neighborhood, as long as a little common sense is observed.

You live in a very different area to me then. Parcel thefts, car break ins and thefts, bicycle thefts from garages etc are a regular occurrence here.

Austin is very liberal compared to the rest of Texas. Your parents in law should move here!

I really like Austin, I just wish the rest of Texas was more like it.