many of you have guns and there’s much more violence and insanity in general

Every third article in the UK is about "Knife Crime!!!" The French and German news networks make it sound like Paris and Berlin are active war zones. FFS, even the Swedes are insisting half the country is living out the plot of Taken.

Like, I'm sure the US is marginally less safe than Europe. But I suspect that has more to do with Europe just being on-average five years older than the US. By and large, both continents are extremely safe. Violence - particularly street violence - is extraordinarily rare. And the areas where it does crop up tend to be between people who know each other and having some kind of deep interpersonal dysfunction (abusive spouses / parents, school kids fighting one another over some accumulated grudge, sports hooligans brawling with their rivals).

What we have, in practice, is a handful of highly glamorized violent events (school shootings, most notably) that get international news coverage. FFS, we spend more time covering shootings in the US than we do covering our active military campaigns abroad.

I think this is just normal. I felt the same way traveling in Europe. I think it's just the combination of being in an unfamiliar place and standing out as a traveler. A lot of scammers target travelers intentionally.

I experienced the opposite feeling, spent my high school summers in London and always felt like laughing when people would warn us off rough neighborhoods that were safer than the safe neighborhoods where I was from.

It has gotten much less violent here since then.

1980s to 2000

Believe it or not this still left us rougher than the US in general or even Florida in general. But look, since 2000

You had more action on your vacation than I have living here. Granted, I don't know where you went.