Why should the whole country be compared to anywhere though? The idea (implicitly) is that it gives you a sense of what it's like to live in the US. But no one lives in the whole country. People live in a particular area, usually one state (out of 50). Even then, most people's lives are largely limited to one or two counties. The reason that most Americans are not concerned with this kind of thing is that the vast majority of them are not exposed to this violence at all. For most Americans, life is extremely safe and peaceful.