I live in a small town in the mountains, whenever we hear sirens it's like "Oh no, someone got in an accident," or "there must be a fire somewhere." I'm pretty lucky that way though, some parts of the state are pretty bad and can make you scared to be in them, but that's just certain parts of the more major cities. All in all it's not that bad - people get the wrong impression from tv. Definitely more guns and violence than the UK.