For several hundred years, local and national legislation has attempted to balance the constitutional right to carry guns with the requirement that gun owners use them lawfully. This balance is struck through background checks processed via the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Your Local Security (YLS) looked at the evolution of the

Want a Treat instead of a Trick on Halloween this year? The team at YourLocalSecurity.com (YLS) did some research to determine which US metro areas are the safest to take your costume-cloaked kiddos around the neighborhood with their pumpkin pails in 2018. The team analyzed four data points—percent of trick-or-treaters, pedestrian car deaths, violent crime

Which US cities are getting more dangerous over time? Which are getting safer? The team at YLS tracked down FBI crime trends from 2006 to 2016 to determine which US cities have seen the sharpest increases and decreases in crime over the past ten years. Check out the below crime map to see how your

Debt collection scams and fraudulent robocalls are on the rise in the US, with millions of Americans targeted annually by scam artists. In fact, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data shows there were nearly 2.7 million reports of scams in 2017 alone. In honor of National Safety Month, the team at Your Local Security dug into

It’s no secret that hurtling in a metal tube at 600 mph, 30,000 feet into Earth’s atmosphere can make hearts race. But what else makes people’s palms sweat when planning their next vacation? The team at Your Local Security looked at the top travel fears according to 25 travel experts, then dug into Google Search

We look to Google® for everything we’re anxious about. Google holds all the answers—so why not flip those search queries to figure out what the American people are worried about? Discovering the issues that Americans search for on Google could tell us what each state values and finds important. It could also predict what problems

It’s inconvenient and frustrating when a thief takes off with your new bike or a burglar finds a weak spot in your side entrance and steals your high-def TV. Unfortunately, according to reported crime totals, property crimes like these are the #1 most reported crimes in the U.S.—by far. In fact, in 2015-2016, there were

In a perfect world, you could trust any salesperson who came to your doorstep. Unfortunately, not everyone who approaches you with a good bargain is exactly who they seem. Every summer, homeowners fall victim to home security system scams and lose hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars to fake salespeople. In a worst-case scenario, a

When it’s time to move to a new city, many people take crime stats into consideration. The number one place for the average person to find crime information is online. However, some police and crime stat experts say that these online crime statistics can be misleading—the numbers don’t always tell the whole story. Below are

Recently, burglars have reached an all-time low, with patterns of breaking into homes while families attend funerals. In some cases, burglars scan the obituaries for names, addresses, and times of funerals, so they know exactly when mourning loved ones will be out of the home. In an effort to raise awareness, here are the details