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Yakk,
Regarding the 'swing' between murders and assaults, in perusing the stats for violent crimes, available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it became clearer why we might see the difference: Guns are only used in about 10% of violent crimes, of which the vast majority are assaults. Most assaults just are people pounding eachother with fists, wrestling, etc. Homocides on the other hand involve guns 50% of the time. Makes sense concidering the lethality of a gun versus a fist.
It would make sense that there isn't a huge difference between London and Chicago in assaults, since I wouldn't think that drunk Londoners in a pub or drunk Chigagoans in a pub are any more or less likely than the others to go to fisticuffs. The difference in homocides is where the use of firearms makes its presence known, and where firearms are plentiful, the number of murders being significantly higher makes sense.
Josh
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