I suppose robberies happen in every major city, and you'll find most of the same problems in Boston or NY, but I moved out of Boston when I was 11 and I'm not accustomed to the big city life. I, as of yet, have not been robbed or pick-pocketed *knock on wood.* But I have plenty of friends who have been and I hear about it on the news every day, and while none of these robberies ever turn violent, it's actually more of annoyance to me than anything. I'd like to be able to walk down the street w/o looking over my shoulder every second or checking every five minutes to make sure my money is still in my pocket. I'd like to not have to consider "well if i get robbed today, will i still have enough money for..." before I make any major purchase. And I'd like to be able to take the bus home at night w/o worrying about the half-a-block walk from the stop to my door.
Most of these fears were assuaged by the assurance that I live in a pretty nice area; however, today, two blocks from my house, there was another home robbery. These happen much more often than they should and are an endless source of worry and lecture material for my host mother and even my maid. Every time I leave the house I am reminded that I must "take the utmost caution when entering and exiting the building."
What happens the majority of the time is that robbers wait near the entrance of a building, and then when they see someone coming in or out, they run up and direct that person to take them up to their apartment and the robbers then take everyone in the apartment hostage and of course steal all the money and anything valuable in the apartment. Now, as I've said I haven't heard of one of these incidents ending in violence yet, but they are, of course, very scary and not very fun.
When discussing this at dinner w/ my family (and making up secret code words to use if we ever happen to be held up by a robber) I started to think about how in the US, this problem hardly even exists, even in the biggest cities. In general, I wouldn't say I'm against the second amendment, but I do think it causes a lot more problems than it solves. However, this is clearly an instance in which we should thank it for our safety. Home invasions are rare in the US and when they do occur, the robber generally tries to plan them at a time in which the victims wont be home so as to make it as easy as possible. I think a very large part of why this is, is because in the US you never know who's "packin' heat." Armed robberies in any location, be it a home, convenience store, or bank are VERY difficult because many people in the US are armed and most times it's just not worth the risk. Here, any criminal that can get his hands on a gun from the black market can rob anyone and as long as he can get away before the cops get there he's fine. While you can get a license to own a gun here for hunting and target shooting and such, it's not a very common practice and in general the people here have no way to defend themselves and the robbers have nothing to be afraid of.
On the flip side, however, there are much fewer violent crimes and shootings here. I can't say exactly how I feel on this topic because, as I said, I think the second amendment causes more problems than it solves and we need much stricter gun control laws in the US. However, it is definitely interesting to get a glimpse of life w/o the right to bear arms.
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