Paul,

"Please Issy will you fill me in on those Czech Experience laws you think are such a good idea for Australia. Why are you "ducking" the question?"

I only put it up to shew that some countries think rather differently to Australia, i.e. they allow and, it seems, encourage their citizens to defend themselves.

Julian,

Go back to sleep.

leoj,

Again, you are being annoyingly slow to understand
or deliberately digressing. The point that is being
made is that while it is true that Chicago, a city
which has very strict gun laws, also has a high level
of gun violence. What this shows is the need for more
widespread laws. People who want guns can simply go
outside of Chicago, obtain guns with ease and bring
them back into the city. Therefore strict gun laws in
one city will be ineffective if the laws of the state
in which that city is located are lax.

The need for more widespread laws is the point being
made here. Everything else is mere digression on your
part.

cont'd ...

leoj,

You still haven't answered the questions I asked
you earlier.

Such variations and they can appear large are most commonly the statistical phenomenon of regression towards the mean.

The social problems continue. Almost invariably the violence (and firearms is a sub-set), is black on black and involving gangs and drugs. The background from Wikipedia,

"Chicago street gangs
Chicago is considered the most gang infested city in the United States, with a population of over 100,000 active members from nearly 60 different factions. Gang warfare and retaliation is common in Chicago. Gangs were responsible for 61% of the homicides in Chicago in 2011.

Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy blames Chicago's gang culture for its high rates of homicide and other violent crime, stating "It's very frustrating to know that it's like 7 percent of the population causes 80 percent of the violent crime...The gangs here are traditional gangs that are generational, if you will. The grandfather was a gang member, the father's a gang member, and the kid right now is going to be a gang member."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel disbanded the Chicago Police Department's anti-gang unit in 2012"

Amelioration lies in real, practical improvements to the socio-economic conditions for blacks, with education, employment, recreation for youth and so on. It will be a slow grind and unfortunately governments and the political parties competing for that role, do not always think that way. Practical improvements mean some set-backs, a lot of planning and public contact and a lot of coordination. Above all, elbow grease.

According to FBI statistics and reports -
homicides regarding American blacks have been on
the rise since the start of 2015 - largely driven by
street violence in Chicago, Baltimore and the nation's
capital. This was shown clearly on the 60 Minutes program
on Sunday - mentioned earlier.
Even President Trump has declared that "African
American communities are absolutely in the worst shape
they've ever been in before." And, "Inner-city crime is
reaching records levels."

The high involvement of American blacks in homicide results
primarily from the profound social disaster - involving
broken families, drug abuse, poor education, and unemployment -
all of which has afflicted a small segment of black youth
in the ghetto "underclass."

But lets look further afield.

In international terms, the United States is an extremely
violent society with a homicide rate far exceeding that of
any other industrialised nation. A single city like Chicago
Houston or Los Angeles records more murders in a typical
year than does the whole of the UK.

We now come to the question of handguns. Most other countries
severely restrict private handgun ownership. But there are
millions upon millions of handguns in the United States and
weapons of this type are used in most of the thousands
of murders that occur each year.

Why then, does the US permit such a widespread access to handguns?
One reason is the persistent belief that, since criminals have
guns, law-abiding people need them for self-protection.

Actually, experts tell us that -
gun-owning households are much more likely to suffer
fatalities from their own weapons than from those of outsiders.

One study found that only 2 per cent of all slayings in gun-owning
households were for self-protection. The remainder were suicides,
homicides, or accidental deaths, almost all involving family
members, friends or acquaintances.

A second reason for the proliferation of handguns is the belief,
deeply held by many Americans, that gun ownership is an
individual right.

For granting this liberty to the individual, American society pays
the price for those who choose to abuse that right.

Foxy,

"gun-owning households are much more likely to suffer
fatalities from their own weapons than from those of outsiders."

Care to reference that?