I think my post was clear, but here is the easy-peasy --
1. A lot of folks might expect a urban center with an ample supply of handguns to have a MUCH higher murder rate
than one in which handguns are illegal, assuming similar population size.
2. I would bet that most of the murders in NYC are committed using handguns.
3. I would bet that, by far, most the murders committed in London are by knife-wielders.
4. An analogy: as far as killing efficiency is concerned, a handgun is to a Corvette as a knife is to a horse and buggy. (handgun:Corvette :: knife:horse & buggy
)
5. A Corvette should be able to repeatedly lap the horse and buggy on the race track.
6. But in this case, the Corvette can't. The horse and buggy stay in the Corvette's rearview mirror no matter how fast it goes. In fact, given a chance, the horse and buggy will even pass the Corvette from time to time.
7. That is why I stated, "There are about 2.5 to 5.0 MILLION handguns floating about in NYC (estimated),whereas handguns are banned in England, so really London is holding its own every month!"
Again --> considering that NYC's murderers access weaponry that Ian Fleming's Bond would envy, while London's less fortunate murderers have to rely 5000-year-old technology, London Town''s murder rate is doing just fine, thank you very much.
You stated earlier,
"However, in the first 6 months of this year, NYC totaled 141 murders and London totaled 80, or there were 75% more murders in NYC than London in the first half of the year..."
OK, true enough. But the "75% more" figure might be taken by some to indicate a very large difference in murder rates. But during the six-month period, only 61 more murders occurred in NYC, the Disneyland of Handguns, versus London, the Nuclear Winter of Handguns.
In 2017, NYC had 290 (NYT) homicides, while London had 131 (w'pedia). For convenience, let's say that each city has 8 million people. NYC's 2017 murder rate per 100K is about 4, rounded up. London's 2017 murder rate per 100K is about 2, rounded up.
For a couple of the largest cities on earth, meh, not enough difference to shake a stick at.
So, yeah, London and NYC have about the same rates of murder-most-foul. The general drift of the conversation in which my post was originally submitted is that London crime is increasing rapidly of late (since 2015). But that is not part of the narrative that fake news sources are wont to make readily available.