Reply #111: If carrying is illegal but it still happens...

[Euromutt]

...then those cities are not "places in the world where you can go to escape the constant specter of gun violence," are they?

You're missing a fundamental point here, which is that gun violence is not caused by the presence of guns, but almost entirely by the presence of criminals. I'm sure you can find quite a number of American rural communities where guns are plentiful but gun crime is minimal or even non-existent. By contrast, there's probably not a major city in the world where there's no violence, gun violence included, simply because cities attract crime (it's where the victims are) and criminals will get guns if they feel they need them.

I might add that "the constant specter of gun violence" bothers me significantly less than the specter of violence in general, and frankly, the latter affects me more when I'm visiting urban parts of north-western Europe than either does in Seattle or Portland, OR. Actually, I've come closer to being shot twice in The Hague, NL than I ever have in the US.