Nowhere's "safe" and never has been. Lightning can strike anywhere. But you really are pretty safe in most places, if you use your head. Don't look threatening or scornful, don't look like a walking bank-roll.

I liked the irony of someone from Belfast asking about the risks involved in visiting America. Not because it's not a perfectly reasonable thing to ask - the statistics indicate that there's always been more likelihood of getting shot in some parts of America than there ever was in Belfast, even at the height of the troubles. But the question runs slap up against the kind of stereotypes that terrify the tourist boards any time there's a shooting or a bomb anywhere in Europe, because of the holiday cancellations by people living in places that are probably more dangerous to start with.

I think the main thing I'd be worried about would be that some respectable gun-packing member of the citizenry might think I looked like some kind of undesirable intruder. (Uncle J perhaps...)