further digging and i think the stat i had looked at back then, was not murders, but assaults with a deadly weapon (knife and gun specifically). which is possibly the more relevant stat as we are talking about overall safety.
this guy is a to angry for my taste, but he breaks it down along the lines of the info i must be recalling:
http://sob.apotheon.org/?p=1323relevant bit:
In or about 2006, there were about 60 million (actually closer to 58M, but we'll use the rounded-up number to be kind to hopolophobes) people in the UK as a whole, including Scotland.
In England and Wales alone — discounting Scotland — there were over 163 thousand knife crimes.
By the end of 2006, there were more than 300 million people in the US as a whole.
In the US as a whole, there were fewer than 400 thousand gun crimes.
In the UK, based on these numbers, there was one knife crime commited for every 374 people (rounded down).
In the US, based on these numbers, there was one gun crime committed for every 750 people — less than half a gun crime per 374 people (about 0.4987 gun crimes per 374 people, actually).
That means that, based on these statistics, you are more than twice as likely to be a victim of knife crime in the UK as you are to be a victim of gun crime in the US.
and that appears to be discounting scotland, which has a far higher rate of crimes committed with a knife if i recall.
