Heh. You know, that sounds like a great way to misdirect the cops. You want to rob a bank? Set off the gunfire detectors in a White, upper class neighborhood and then hit the joint while the cops are looking the other way.
Yes. 1. Brick/stone/concrete buildings make excellent noise blockers, so the noise will likely echo loudly in an alleyway or down the street but on the other side of a building or two? Not so much. 2. Other noises will mask it. If near a downtown, even late at night you will have lots of people, music, doors opening and closing, dogs barking, horns, sirens ect to mask the gunshots, so when added to point 1, it would make it easy to ignore. 3. If it is a high crime area, people who do hear the gunshots would be likely to go the other way, especially in areas where there is minimal police presence. It is safer that way. 4. If the weather is bad, even less people will be out, and a storm(even just high winds) creates more ambient noise to mask the shots. 5. If a more industrial area there are fewer people, the buildings are bigger and/or heavily built making it easier to block the noise.
USA has more guns, yes, but also more people. You've got a population of what, 350 million people? Canada's the second largest country in the world by land mass (Russia is first unless it broke up some more) and we have less than 40 million people. As for the amount of guns in USA, you've got the "right to bear arms" constitutionally guaranteed so I think it's part of your national identity. I participate in an online survey site, Tellwut and there was a survey last year about the number of guns individuals own. One person claiming to be American claimed to have 22 rifles and 8 handguns. If that was true, it's 30 firearms for one individual. Seems like a lot.
