&gt; The US seems like a very cool place, with so much potential, but increasingly, i&#x27;m considering putting it on my personal blacklist as far as destinations to look for work go. I just can&#x27;t imagine living in fear of some concealed-carry-permit holding goon deciding to shoot the place up.<p>The US homicide rate is around 3.8 per 100k. That is higher than much of Europe (UK 1.0, Finland 1.6, Norway 2.2, Germany 0.8) but not to the point that it is rational to fear coming to the US.<p>Would you fear taking a vacation to Bermuda or the Bahamas? They have much higher homicide rates than the US (7.7 and 29.8, respectively).<p>Also note that homicide rates are taken over the whole country. They vary considerably from place to place within the country. For most tech jobs that a typical non-US HN reader might come to the US for, you&#x27;d almost certainly be working in a location that has a much lower than average homicide rate, and would be making enough money to live in a place with a much lower than average homicide rate.