Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
If you ask most people which developed country has the worst violent crime problem, the answer is usually the United States.
It’s a claim repeated by politicians, media outlets, and even foreign governments. The argument often goes something like this: America has more guns, so naturally it has more violent crime.
But according to new research from economist and Crime Prevention Research Center President Dr. John Lott, that conclusion depends almost entirely on which statistics you’re looking at.
In a new investigation published by Real Clear Investigations, Lott argues that when you compare the total number of people who say they’ve actually been victims of crime (not just crimes reported to police) the United States often fares much better than commonly believed.
And in some categories, it fares better than Canada and Australia.
Table of contents
Police Reports Aren’t the Whole Story
Lott says one of the biggest mistakes people make when comparing crime between countries is relying solely on police reports.
The problem? Not every crime gets reported.
That’s why countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia all conduct large victimization surveys. Instead of counting police reports, researchers ask thousands of people whether they’ve personally been victims of crimes such as robbery, assault, sexual assault, or burglary: even if they never called police.
The U.S. uses the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which interviews roughly 240,000 Americans every year.
Canada conducts a similar General Social Survey, while Australia operates its own national victimization survey. Lott argues those surveys paint a much different picture.
Murder Isn’t the Whole Crime Story
Lott readily acknowledges one statistic. America’s homicide rate remains higher.
In 2025, the U.S. murder rate was roughly four per 100,000 people. About double Canada’s and Australia’s recent homicide rates.
But he argues homicide represents only a tiny slice of violent crime. According to the NCVS, murders accounted for only about 0.21 percent of violent crimes committed in the United States.
“So if you’re trying to understand what everyday crime looks like,” Lott argues, “you need to look beyond homicide.”
Australia Looks Different Under Victim Surveys
One of the biggest surprises in Lott’s analysis involves Australia. Using victimization survey data instead of police reports, he concludes Australia’s:
- Sexual assault rate is roughly three times higher than the United States.
- Assault rate is about twice as high.
- Burglary rate is roughly 2.5 times higher.
- Robbery rates are relatively similar.
He also argues Australia’s surveys likely undercount repeat victimizations because they record victims rather than individual criminal incidents.
Canada Doesn’t Come Out Looking Better Either
Canada also challenges the conventional narrative. Lott writes that Canada’s victimization survey reported violent crime rates far above what police statistics suggest.
After adjusting for differences between the U.S. and Canadian surveys, he concludes Canada’s overall violent crime victimization rate was at least 175 percent higher than the U.S. in 2019.
Robbery rates, he says, were 268 percent higher, while burglary rates were 259 percent higher.
Why Don’t Victims Call Police?
Another point Lott raises involves reporting rates. He cites experts who argue people are less likely to report crimes when they believe offenders won’t be caught or prosecuted.
Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser says victimization surveys provide a much more complete picture of crime than police reports alone.
University of Georgia professor David Mustard goes a step further.
“The extremely low reporting rates in Australia and Canada raise serious doubts about public confidence in their criminal justice systems,” he said.
Not Everyone Agrees
Lott’s conclusions aren’t likely to end the debate. International crime comparisons are notoriously difficult.
Countries define crimes differently. Survey methods vary. Cultural differences also affect whether people report crimes to police or even participate in victimization surveys.
Even Lott acknowledges direct comparisons require caution because survey methodologies aren’t identical.
Still, he argues the available evidence consistently challenges the popular belief that America is uniquely dangerous.
The Bigger Question
Whether readers agree with Lott or not, his research raises an important question.
If victimization surveys capture crimes that never make it into police reports, should they carry more weight than official crime statistics when comparing countries? Or are police-reported numbers still the better benchmark?
Lott believes the answer is clear. His research argues that relying only on police reports paints an incomplete and often misleading picture of public safety.
It’s a debate that’s likely to continue, especially as policymakers cite international crime comparisons in arguments over gun laws, criminal justice reform, and public safety.
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is a seasoned outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, and the kind of guy who’d rather track whitetails than scroll social media. As an editor for GunsAmerica, he’s got a sharp eye for spotting both solid gear and bad gun laws. Whether he’s deep in the woods or deep in editorial deadlines, Larry brings a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to firearms, hunting, and the great American tradition of self-reliance. If there’s a hot debate on gun rights or the latest in hunting tech, you can bet Larry’s got an opinion—and it’s probably backed up with both facts and field experience.
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Iran and Mexico are two stand out nations that ban guns totally from citizens not being allowed to own firearms.
In both cases only bad guys have the guns. In Mexico.
If given a choice why don’t all Americans who want guns taken off the hands of regular good citizens, why don’t they try to defect and somehow sneak into Iran or Mexico where they can live in harmony with a govenment that agrees with their way of thinking?
Whenever you think crime is bad in America, go for a stroll alone through the streets of Juarez Mexico on a Friday night, that will really open your eyes to why so many people from Mexico migrate to America, legally and illegally.
Lott is a Demoncrat politician, and he is laying down his bed of lies so he can get elected. Deport all illegals, and the crime rate will go down even more. Then get rid of 80% of the Demoncrat lawyers, and all of the Demoncrat judges will help. If you effectively deal with the criminals by executing violent and repeat offenders, crime will drop dramatically.
Herr Hauptmann Jethro John you are an uneducated rabid racist Moron. Statistics show the majority of crime is committed by American Citizens, NOT by immigrants either legal or illegal. In fact illegals know they have to keep a low profile to stay off the murderous ICE Gestapo’s radar. When they see ICE killers murdering American Citizens in broad daylight they know they would be murdered immediately if ICE stopped them. Shades of Nazi Germany and the Far Right is cheering just as they cheered when the Jews were being murdered in the Gas chambers. In fact the Far Right want to build them here.
Try again Herr Hauptmann your jackboots are showing.
More lies from the left The British are literally scared to leave their homes due to crime. They live in a country where they believe it’s only a matter of time before they are assaulted. And the left does nothing. Europeans came for soccer, thinking how dangerous America was, dye to their own media lies, and they found out otherwise. And reported it.
In the infamous George Zimmerman/Travon Martin case Zimmerman who was legally carrying a firearm would never have confronted Martin who towered over him and was later proved to be a know house breaker and street thug. Zimmerman tried to play cop even though he was warned by the police dispatcher to stay in his care until the police arrived. If Zimmerman had stayed in his car Martin would never have been confronted and killed and Zimmerman would have avoided the nightmare that followed in court. The News Media portrayed Zimmerman as a mad dog racist who shot down a skinny little innocent black boy holding a bag of skittles.
Zimmerman was then charged with a crime that he later beat in court but all this once again proves that Lott always has been wrong because more guns on the street usually does mean more hotheaded confrontations which normally would not have occurred.
Last week a Woman threatened by a Bully over a parking space shot and killed him but the Bully never touched her and with all the people on the scene at the time there is very little likelihood that he would have touched her but he ended up dead because a gun was being carried. Yet another nail in the coffin of Lott who claims we would have the safest nation on earth if everyone was armed to the teeth with for example M60 machine guns. Well its almost that bad considering the number of people who legally and illegally carry guns as we have one of the highest homicides and mass murder rates on the planet.
There is a damn good reason most civilized nations outlaw concealed and in most cases open carry of firearms because in the short and long run more lives are saved and their crime history proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course you will never convince the sick paranoids that go armed to the teeth to their bathrooms with two pistols and a dagger that any of this could be true simply because they do not want to believe the truth. I am not exaggerating as just last week some wild paranoid asked if others like himself carried two pistols with them when they went to the bathroom. That drew some shocked remarks from even some of the regular posters on the forum.
Lott’s fanciful bold face lies and twisting of facts have been condemned by all the professionals that have investigated him. You have got to hand it to him as he reinforces the myths and paranoia of the Far Right who eat up his propaganda like giving candy to a baby and Lott laughs all the way to the bank. He knows how to play a fool into giving him his money.
Quote————————–After adjusting for differences between the U.S. and Canadian surveys, he concludes Canada’s overall violent crime victimization rate was at least 175 percent higher than the U.S. in 2019.————quote
A laugh and another outrageous Lott bold face lie and twisting and skewering of facts. Although crime rates have been rising slightly in Canada even a brief research will show that Lott is no more honest than Vladmir Putin or President Trump.
For violent crimes, the top (worst) ranked city was Memphis, TN (1,311 per 100,000) while the top ranked Canadian city was Winnipeg, which ranked 18th overall at 675 per 100,000.
In 2023, Canada’s police-reported violent crime rate stood at 252 incidents per 100,000 people, compared to 334 in the U.S. – a 33 per cent difference. Fifteen years ago, the gap was 77 per cent.
The U.S. saw a 37 per cent drop in violent crime between 1998 and 2023, while Canada experienced a nine per cent rise since 2009, when reporting methods shifted from victim-based to incident-based counts.
All this has not gone unnoticed to the Canadian Government who then has passed more strict gun legislation. How well this will affect crime is still to be seen but similar legislation far more draconian has worked well in Europe.
Sounds like you should move to what ever country you think is safest or go back to the country you are from and stay there and not worry about the good ole USA
No I do not turn tail and run. Instead I fight to turn America into a civilized country by studying what laws have worked and worked well in other countries. The Far Right do their best to hide the Truth but the Truth has a habit of always coming back to haunt and embarrass them.
MYTH: Most studies show that more guns mean less crime
Researcher John Lott falsely claims that two-thirds of peer-reviewed literature shows concealed carry laws reduce crime.
Lott’s false claim relies on obsolete work and studies in which right-to-carry (RTC) laws are not the variables of interest.
Most studies with a national scope published since 2005 find that RTC laws increase crime, particularly aggravated assaults. In short, more guns in public means more crime.
All lies. Guns in hands of good people stop more crimes than committed. And the are tens if thousands that don’t make any studies or books All left wing bs studies.
While I consider myself a be an average American in most ways, I am smart enough NOT TO PICK A FISTFIGHT WITH SOMEONE CARRYING A FIREARM… It’s my uneducated GUESS that the majority of rational people regardless of nationality would do the same, which brings us back to the point that most criminals are A, not rational and B, are not going to let some ink on paper stop them from committing crimes. C, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but people have been killing (murdering) other people LONG BEFORE GUNPOWDER or GUNS WERE INVENTED… I distinctly remember reading a story about a little guy named David who slew a much bigger guy with nothing more than a rock and a piece of rope with a leather pouch attached in the middle… Think about that for a moment, David brought a rock to a sword fight and walked away the victor…
The problem with John lot is that he is dishonest.
He uses fraudulent accounts to post bogus reviews in support of his so-called ‘scholarly reports’.
He’s the George Santos/Anthony Delawder of gun research.
“Scholar Invents Fan To Answer His Critics
Mary Rosh thinks the world of John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar whose book “More Guns, Less Crime” caused such a stir a few years ago.
In postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she’s repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He’s not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott’s probity and academic gifts.
“I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had,” Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.
Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything.
Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott — or at least that’s the pseudonym he’s used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week.
“I probably shouldn’t have done it — I know I shouldn’t have done it — but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,” said Lott, an economist who has held senior research positions at the University of Chicago and Yale.
Moreover, the AEI resident scholar acknowledged on Friday that he permitted his 13-year-old son to write an effusive review of “More Guns, Less Crime” and then post it on the Amazon.com Web site. It was signed “Maryrosh.”
Lott said that he frequently has used the name “Mary Rosh” to defend himself in online debates. The name is an amalgam of the first two letters of his four sons’ first names. In a posting to the Web site maintained by Tim Lambert, an Australian professor who has relentlessly attacked Lott’s guns studies, “Mary Rosh” claims to be a former student of Lott at the University of Pennsylvania, where the economist taught between 1991 and 1995.“
When a reporter attempted to read the posting to him over the telephone, Lott stopped him after the first few words. “I’m sure I did that. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Julian Sanchez, a Cato Institute staffer, is the cybersleuth who tracked Mary Rosh back to John Lott.
“I compared that IP with the header of an email Dr. Lott had sent me from his home address. And by yet another astonishing coincidence, it had originated at the very same IP address. Now, what are the odds of that?” he wrote in a posting on his Web site. “Sarcasm aside, we’re a little old to be playing dress up, aren’t we Dr. Lott?”
Lott said he initially used his own name in online debates with critics. “But you just get into really emotional things with people. You also run into other problems.” So he started using the name Mary Rosh. “I should not have done it, there is no doubt. But it was a way to get information into the debate.”
“The problem with John lot is that he is dishonest.”
Dishonesty is just one of the problems with dacian.
Herr Hauptmann Kane you must have taken time off from your meetings with the Proud Boys and Patriot Front. Heil Drumpf!
Herr Hauptmann when you point the finger at someone you have 3 fingers pointed right back at yourself and in your case you have them all pointed back at yourself.
So what about the three fingers pointing back at you when you point your finger at Lott?
Using all these ethnic names as insults is starting to feel a little racist, dacian. And we stand up against racism around here!
That clown Lott has been caught so many times lying and twisting statistics only a fool would believe anything that charlatan says. Lott was even caught answering himself with a fake name. He even admitted later he did it after he was caught red handed and exposed. Professional researchers have all condemned everything Lott has posted or published. Lott panders to the ignorant Far Right who never bother to research anything themselves. They let Lott do their thinking for them and Lott cashes in on their total ignorance and laughs all the way to the bank.
It honestly sounds like you have a love/hate interest in Mr. Lott. One article and you post 5 times against his findings with more than just a “I don’t believe him” type of comment. And having friends who live in some of these places mentioned and having traveled quite extensively myself once upon a time, and that all major media outlets have reported on the reports from our world cup visitors, shows he is actually telling the truth. Our country is not as violent and terrifying as the media politicians would like us to believe. So, I think, sir, you need to get over it. Have a nice day.
quote—————–reports from our world cup visitors————quote
The Athletes from foreign countries were only here a very short time and do not live here every day. On top of that to prevent an embarrassment to the U.S. Government they get a lot of security protection as well. Because they did not see blood and gore in the streets themselves they did not know that our country is many more times violent than theirs is. They were lulled into a sense of false security because they expected to see shoot outs on every street corner 24 hours around the clock. In the poorer sections of the U.S. they certainly would have probably seen violence and shootings if they had stayed here more than just a very short period of time.
The crazed and totally ignorant Far Right then danced in the blood of the victims in our streets screaming from the rooftops that the U.S. is not violent and does not have an out of control gun problem while wiping the blood and gore off of their shoes. Tell that Right Wing bullshit to the families of the 45,000 victims of gun violence including the yearly 1,500 child shooting deaths a year. Then ask the visitors how many of their own people were slaughtered in gun violence in their country. That will give them pause for thought.
Sorry your brainwashed propaganda failed the smell test and the reality test. Try again.
These are not the athletes themselves but spectators driving across the country, marvelling at Buc-ees and Waffle Houses all across this wonderful country, mostly people who are here for weeks. That German guy Freddy met Ella Langley. That Swedish gal discovered ranch dressing and even the gently seasoned food of Golden Corrall impressed her. Then there were the Scots in Boston and the Norwegians and their chants. My echo chamber is almost wall to wall Europeans loving our metric-rejecting ways.
Why is the propoganda you are fed any better than any other propoganda we might be consuming? Your people are screaming about the reflecting pool and payment schedules for E Jean Carroll and mine is celebrating the world community discovering America.
only problem we have is the bad guys keep getting back out on the street due to a lack of real punishments.
The U.S. has more people in prison than Russia, China, and North Korea combined. Your twisted philosophy is to lock people up rather than study why people commit crime in the first place. But to a ignorant uneducated Hill-jack like you this is all way over your head.
Despite Nixon locking hundreds of thousands up crime only continued to rise. Dope addiction actually got worse because of the lack of Federal Treatment programs blocked by the criminal Republicans. You would think all these decades later even the Neanderthal Republicans would discover that locking people up does not discover why they commit crime to begin with and lack of treatment for drug addiction only increases drug addition and gang wars fighting over turf. Christ its not rocket science.
Lack of good paying jobs, lack of child care programs for working mothers which are always blocked by the stingy Republicans while giving away billions of tax dollars to Elon Musk and other super rich criminals are called Corporate Subsides which leaves no money for job retraining or aid to education or drug treatment programs that all other Civilized and Industrialized countries have had for years.
The criminal Republicans will tell you the worker troglodyte slaves are expendable. Anything to steal tax dollars for themselves and their greedy corporate sugar daddies.
Sad to say there is a Hillbilly Moron born every minute in Capitalvania and that is exactly how Trump got elected because of ignorance and racism.
You got a brilliant solution right there. It’s so simple even a redneck (rednecks originated in Colorado, look it up) could get it. Lock up the people who are repeat criminal offenders preferably in as few locations as possible and then send the boffins in to study them and figure out why they commit crimes… I love it, it’s brilliant. Personally I would have said just shoot them, but your idea is so much more socialist…
If your middle name wasn’t Jethro Bodine you would have moved your indolent fingers across your keyboard and studied what laws and Social Programs have worked well in other countries but that would risk destroying your Maga brainwashed belief that America is always right and totally perfect.
Currently America has a long way to go to become a civilized country and to do that we have to roll up our sleeves go to work promoting Socialism and defeat the Jackbooted Greed Monger Criminal Republicans who took away our health care when they destroyed the Obama Care extensions that took health care away from 330 million Americans while giving billions in tax breaks like Amazon and Elon Musk who paid zero income taxes. Elon is a trillionaire and Amazon made 2 billion last year and paid zero in taxes while the American troglodyte slaves paid all the taxes to keep the Government running.
If you were not a total Moron you would realize that we could receive double our Social Security wages and have paid for Universal Health Care if the filthy rich all paid just the same percentage of taxes that the worker troglodyte slaves do. President Eisenhower a real Republican made the super rich pay as high as 90% taxes on some of their income investments and none of them went bankrupt over it. So in your twisted way of thinking Eisenhower was a Communist and enemy of the people. Right????? You must have hid behind the door when the brains were passed out.
Try again Einstein you failed.
Big nap time YAWN 🥱
I didn’t waste my time reading what was written because it was a waste of time when you wrote it and unlike you I have stuff to do on a Saturday afternoon that doesn’t include reading chatbot excrement.
quote——— Lock up the people who are repeat criminal offenders preferably in as few locations as possible———quote
Jethro James I suggest you have your wife explain my post to you in regards to the fact that locking people up does not get at the root problem of crime happening in the first place. I think even a 5th grader is educated enough to figure that one out.
BIG YAWN, see above quote 🥱