Might want to clean those rose-colored glasses, @katliamom
Europe is not all unicorns and pixie dust…
http://www.germanjoys.eu/2015/10/violent-crime-is-more-common-in-europe-than-the-usa.html
Oh please. It doesn’t take much googling to see just to what extent we dominate over Europe in gun deaths, for example.
Your argument is that Europe is safer, when in fact that is patently false.
You do realize there is more to violent crime than just “gun deaths”, right?
Well - two people shot an hour ago on the UCLA campus - guns and bombs frankly scare me more than other types of violent crime seeing as you can be victimized even if you keep a good distance from the perpetrator.
Ah, yes. America is so safe. And terrorism is so European.
“Two people were shot and killed on the UCLA campus Wednesday, prompting a campus-wide lockdown and forcing hundreds of terrified students to hide in buildings.”
Sorry, fractlmstr. I live 45 minutes away from Columbine High School and about 25 minutes away from the Aurora theater (where, if you don’t remember, a bunch of people were murdered watching a movie.)
Gun deaths all around me, all the time. Mass killings in America happen every week. Doubt most Europeans can say the same.
Here, let me post these again since you clearly ignored them the first time:
http://www.germanjoys.eu/2015/10/violent-crime-is-more-common-in-europe-than-the-usa.html
I can Google just as well as you can 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Germany/United-States/Crime
http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2015/10/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/europe/germany-faces-few-mass-shootings-amid-tough-gun-laws.html?_r=0
My daughter is traveling to Germany in a couple weeks for a month as part of an exchange student program. Makes me nervous. In terms of being away from home, German student stayed with us for a month in the spring so my daughter will know her. Having the State Dept issuing warnings for US citizens traveling to Europe does lead to concerns. Hope everything goes well. Should be a great experience for her.
@saillakeerie, I’m sure it will be fine. Do you feel that living with a family is safer than living in student housing with a bunch of other American students? I would feel that your D’s situation is better because she will have the local family to guide her when it comes to safety issues.
@prospect1 I expect that would be true. She will be in a small city living with a family. Traveling with a large number of US high school kids but once they get to Germany, they will spread about the country. Should be less of a risk than large numbers of US citizens gathered together.
Another look at study abroad safety, in light of the death in Rome last week. http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/risks-on-study-abroad-similar-to-those-students-already-face/article_e21d229f-0ecf-57f5-aa2b-e1e9645e9ee9.html
Seriously, can any of us feel completely safe anywhere? Would your child be better off in Paris, London, New York,
Boston, or Rome?
We cannot protect our kids from everything or even anything. We can take precautions and teach them safe practices. And maybe even that some places may be a better decision than others. ( We did that with D2 who wanted to study abroad in a country in Africa with high crime and high disease).
No place is completely safe. So you have to do a cost/benefit analysis. In the case with D2 we thought the cost was higher than the benefit for the particular Africian choice. She ended up in Switzerland. We thought the benefit was higher than the cost. We certainly would have considered other African choices and maybe not some other European choices. But we cannot keep them in a bubble of protection.
Other countries have now issued advisories warning their citizens of the danger of visiting the United States.
If I am being honest, I worry more about them meeting their future spouse/partner across whatever ocean during study abroad, resulting in me not seeing them or my future grandchildren, than I worry about their safety. I have a professional athlete that travels the world, and at some point, you just don’t worry as much as you think you will. Travel can make them really responsible individuals. I guess our kids, and even us old folks, are adaptable beings after all.
I would not go to Europe myself, even if I paid money to do so. However, my grandD is going soon for the month and I will be very worrying. I myself go abroad every year for vacations - to Central America (zika !!) and plan to do the same in 2017. But I heard that there are plenty of zika cases in Florida anyway. Oh well, we all die of something some day, have to vacation somewhere, right?