I once lived in a part of Los Angeles that at one point I heard at least two gun shootings per week for about a year. Fortunately every year since about 7 years ago shootings in that area gradually declined.
I've used windows 8 for a few days and I would say its not THAT bad once you get accustomed to it. So far I haven't seen any reasons to switch to Windows 8 on my main computer yet.