Canada's murder rate, especially with firearms, is very low compared to the US. Toronto, a city of nearly 5 million, has a murder rate of 1.9 per 100,000. Compare that to Atlanta (34.5), Boston (5.5) New York City (9.1), Vancouver (2.8) and Washington, DC (45.5). The overall crime rate in general is an average of 48 incidents per 100,000 people, compared to Cincinnati (326), Los Angeles (283), New York City (225) and even Vancouver (239).
What does that tell us? It's really too complicated to look at just one cause. But the fact that Canadians do not have ready access to guns certainly plays a large part.
Our murder rate is in the neighborhood of the rates found in major Canadian cities.
BTW, the largest municipality in the Washington DC SMSA is Fairfax County, so any statistics relevant to DC that you might use to show the flavor of the place ought to use Fairfax County as the base. DC is a small enclave in the SMSA and is not representative.
So, what makes Fairfax different than DC? Well, for one, it has the highest median family income in the entire country ~ which makes it possible for us to pay for lots and lots of guns. We also have a rather high percentage of foreign born people, many of them from Afghanistan ~ they learn about guns from childhood in that place. Guess everybody else is a veteran of an army somewhere, even guerrilla movements.
If ever there was a place that might be affected by guns leaping off the tabletop and killing people, this is it.
I think the big difference between here and places where they are killing each other is the level of armaments you might expect to face if you get out of hand. Best keep your pistols in your holsters around here.