You live in a bigish city - I live in a much bigger one.
I'm in Manchester.
I've been out and about in Leeds and, depending on where I am, have felt relatively safe, to relatively unsafe.
The simple fact is, that while Leeds isn't a small town, it's actually (on the whole) much safer than other smaller places.
It is massively safer than Manchester.
I've been jumped, mugged, beaten up and had narrow escapes more times that I can count. The only time anything was evr done about it by the autorities was a "narrow escape" one. In the case I said I could - once my eyes opened up again - lead the police to the front doors of my attackers and point them out among their families (and one of them has siblings that look a lot like him) they said "there's not much we can do".
Why should the fact YOU have not been in situations which might have been prevented by the presence of firearms mean that nobody else should be able to carry them for their own safety? That's quite apart from the argument of whether guns would have prevented the situation arising, escalating or having a better outcome or not.
We already HAVE the potential for disaster - but that potential is one with armed criminals and unarmed victims. In what universe is that more desirable than a level playing field where the victims of violent crime at least have a chance to fight back instead of just rolling over and being preyed on?
In what universe does the existance of laws allowing self defence and concealed carry INCREASE violent crime rates?
Your fears and discomfort are valid in so far as they are real to you - but they have absolutely no grounding in the real world whatsoever.
Fine - be mugged - be raped - don't take a life - but that you'd deny that choice to everyone else is nothing short of sickening.
No - concealed weapons are not illegal in the US - some areas don't allow them, but many do - and all of those that do allow it enjoy a drop in violent crime - not an increase as found in other areas.
Finally - for LA - is that caused by legal firearm ownership (considering almost all [if not all] of those guns are illegally owned to begin with) or by a lack of effective policing, sentencing and community work to remove the cause of the violence in the first place?
The old expression "Blaming guns for LA ghetto violence (Coumbine in the original) is like blaming spoons and ice cream for Rosie O'Donnel's wieght problem" (or words to that effect) are very appropriate here.
Dogwood - it's a fallacy to argue the gun rights issue (pro or con) using just crime as there's far more to it than that.
However, it can be argued that legal availability or otherwise guns for self defence plays a part in crime trends and so it is a valid argument for shall-issue legislation.
That said - you're right, there is more to it than crime stats.