I recall discussing with a liberal friend (whom I knew back in high school in the 1980s) on Facebook the difference between U.S. and Canadian homicide rates and two major points I raised with him were:
1) U.S. states like VT, NH, ME, ID, MT, and ND that immediately border Canada have homicide rates very close to the neighbouring Canadian province(s) and that these states have among the more permissive gun control laws in the U.S. (compared to NY, CA, Washington DC, etc).
2) When Canadian gun control advocates and their friends in the media point out about how far more violent places like Texas and elsewhere in the U.S. (particularly in the South) are, one thing to consider is that once you take out the black on black violent crime in urban centres like Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham, Miami-Dade, and elsewhere like that, you get homicide rates for those areas that are much closer to the Canadian one. This also works for concealed carry states like Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington when considering black on black violent crime in Detroit, Minneapolis-St Paul, and Seattle and it’s effect on those states’ violent crime and homicide rates.
You would probably find the same thing in Pittsburgh if you filtered out the data accordingly. Drug distribution used to be confined to neighborhoods like Braddock, Homewood and Wilkinsburg. Sadly, not so much anymore.