uhhhh, are you telling me the average city had 500 homicides a year in 1850?
keep smoking that crack pipe.
You know damn well I never said that nor implied such...now go pull that needle out of your arm and take a cold shower...come back and read the below.
----------
Yet, now that you mentioned it, I don't have the time to look at the statistical ratios but someone else has done it...
gang violence in the 1850s is statistically similar to what it is today although there obviously weren't better data maintained back then...the choice of weapons was much different.
Urban violence became so bad, that the U.S. created
Prohibition in the 1920's to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America.
It didn't work out too well. In fact,
Prohibition was a big failure because the Gangs became more organized, politicians became more corrupt and the violence spilled over more into the normal population. Also, gun manufacturers seized on the growing violence by having exclusive contracts with the U.S. most outlaw gangsters.
Just as bad,
Hollywood glamorized the gangsters of the 20th century. So much there's been countless movies, academy award winners (e.g. Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarface, Black Caesar, Bugsy, Once Upon a Time In America et cetera).
- America loves their gangs (sarcasm).
My point, it's a
fucked up situation and it wasn't resolved back in the 1850's during the big immigration years from Europe and it's not going to be resolved today because America loves & defends its right to gun ownership.
In fact, the country was founded on the right to bear arms. It's the primary reason America can never be like any other country that has low gun violence in comparison because those countries were not founded on the right to bear arms.
wrbtrader