I'm not sure that Windsor and Detroit are the best comparisons. Even though two cities can be right next to each other, if they are operated differently they can end up being very different places. So vancity_cowboy, you are right in that there are many more factors to the safety of a city than whether or not guns are legal. That being said, from all evidence we can see, that does still seem to make a difference. A better comparison might be Winnipeg and Detroit, being that they're about the same size, both have gang problems, both have dropped overall violence around 10% in recent years, but still both remain very violent. The major difference though, is that from the article the OP posted, there's about a murder a day in Detroit, while in Winnipeg it's around 30 a year (sometimes more, sometimes less). There's a ton of stabbings in Wpg though! And logistically speaking, you have a better chance of surviving a stab wound than a gunshot wound. So from what I can tell from googling crime stats on the two cities, it appears as though there is very similar violence rates, but a big difference in homicide rates. I think a logical conclusion is that guns have a lot to do with this. vancity_cowboy, you said social factors play into crime stats, while cannot the major presence of guns in a society be considered a social factor? In any case, don't take too much of what I said exactly literally, as it's hard to find accurate data on a google search, but at least it gives you an idea.
