> and most criminals don't have access to guns here so crime is less scary to me
I'm the parent and you did an excellent job of clarifying what I was trying to say.
I do want to respond to this statement, however, since I'm Canadian and in one of those countries where abortion is federally protected (and Canadians strongly favour that across partisan lines for the most part) and I live in what used to be one of the safest cities in Canada.
10 - 20 years ago, homicide was virtually unheard of in our city. I mean, it was like a once in a decade event and almost always domestic violence. Today, we can't go a week without hearing about another stabbing or shooting that happened out in public.
Recently our street saw every single vehicle broken into, including ours. We all filed police reports but no one ever showed up or even gave us a follow up call. The message was clear: the police either don't have the capacity or just don't care to deal with certain crimes now. To contrast, I remember my house being broken into when I was around 13 or 14 years-old, so mid 1990s, and I remember watching the detective powder the windows for prints.
Times have changed here in scary ways. We pay the same taxes and have the same expectations of our government as we always did. Canadians value the social safety nets and gun regulations that we have. The problem is that those don't seem to be working as well as they used to. We earn less due to inflation, pay the same or higher taxes, and get less in return. Most of us know of people who travel to the USA for health care due to our long waiting lists while hearing from Americans how great our free health care is.
What city is this? Toronto metro homicides have been ~100 per year for the last 50 years despite Toronto metro population skyrocketing. Basically all Canadian cities show the same pattern.
Abbotsford is my guess. That place went from a peaceful farming community to a gang warzone in 20 years.
There are a LOT of targeted homicides there and it is very visible. I have family there and there have been multiple shootings within a few hundred meters of their home. How can you feel safe?
Almost all of the homicides are targeted gang violence between ethnic groups, but it still makes you concerned for your safety that you are going to take a stray bullet.
Abbotsford is basically metro Vancouver at this point, and they're basically experiencing Vancouver crime now. Crime going up in Abbotsford and going down in Vancouver is terrible for those in Abbotsford but doesn't support the narrative that "crime is going up".
I'm the parent and you did an excellent job of clarifying what I was trying to say.
I do want to respond to this statement, however, since I'm Canadian and in one of those countries where abortion is federally protected (and Canadians strongly favour that across partisan lines for the most part) and I live in what used to be one of the safest cities in Canada.
10 - 20 years ago, homicide was virtually unheard of in our city. I mean, it was like a once in a decade event and almost always domestic violence. Today, we can't go a week without hearing about another stabbing or shooting that happened out in public.
Recently our street saw every single vehicle broken into, including ours. We all filed police reports but no one ever showed up or even gave us a follow up call. The message was clear: the police either don't have the capacity or just don't care to deal with certain crimes now. To contrast, I remember my house being broken into when I was around 13 or 14 years-old, so mid 1990s, and I remember watching the detective powder the windows for prints.
Times have changed here in scary ways. We pay the same taxes and have the same expectations of our government as we always did. Canadians value the social safety nets and gun regulations that we have. The problem is that those don't seem to be working as well as they used to. We earn less due to inflation, pay the same or higher taxes, and get less in return. Most of us know of people who travel to the USA for health care due to our long waiting lists while hearing from Americans how great our free health care is.