comment: >
  
  Yeah, the correct answer really is gang culture and the fetishization of criminality in certain subcultures. Everybody blames gun availability, but these people shooting each other up usually don't obtain their guns legally.
context: It's obvious. And here's another thing they won't like. This is a feature of American life. It's not going away. It's the second ammendment. There's almost no way to affect meaningfull change. Sorry. The murder rates will remain high, school shootings and mass murders will continue at alarming rates, because the second amendment was a mistake. In a world where the CIA kills people it can't identify on the other side of the planet with missiles fired from robots based on their cell phone meta data, small arms are basically meaningless. The founders aren't to blame for this mistake really. They were definitely meaningful at the time, but they aren't now. But they're here to stay. >
  
  
  In a world where the CIA kills people it can't identify on the other side of the planet with missiles fired from robots based on their cell phone meta data, small arms are basically meaningless.
  
  Tell that to the Taiban. >
  
  Look at how many law enforcement agents are in America compared to the military members in Afghanistan. It's a comical comparison. >
  
  Troop numbers in Afghanistan peaked at around 140,000. That’s counting all of NATO. 
  There are around 650,000 law enforcement officers in the US. But we also have an overall population that handily dwarfs that. Even if you took out everyone who would refuse or be unable to fight it still wouldn’t be close to even. Then you have to account for mass desertion and resignation from the military and law enforcement if things like that started happening as well.
  There are also a bunch of other variables that make that comparison sort of useless.
  Also keep in mind that’s the same intelligence apparatus that gave me an important update in the middle of a patrol in Afghanistan to “be on the lookout in block 2 for an insurgent doing insurgent things” and the one that patted itself on the back for killing the Kabul ISIS-K bomber only to realize afterwards that they had bombed an NGO worker and several other people who had absolutely nothing to do with it. >
  
  
  There are around 650,000 law enforcement officers in the US. 
  
  Add in the national guard you're at a million. Unlike Afghanistan they're all familiar with the local language and culture and have an extremely high level of support among the population.
  Any sort of armed rebellion would be painted as terrorism and the population would turn against them in an instant. American police officers kill more unarmed Americans than any Western European police officers, so the idea that guns prevent abuse of power doesn't seem to follow from empirical evidence. >
  
  We’re not talking about small groups of conspiracy theorist preppers misguidedly trying to trigger a revolution. That would be called domestic terrorism because that’s what it is. 
  What we’re talking about would be an extreme case where the government has gone completely opposite of anything resembling representative government. I think you’re underestimating how committed people can be when they’re pressed hard enough, and how many members of the military and national guard would simply leave to go take care of their families or actively fight against the US government.
  Edit: Even then, we have at least one example of a small community successfully revolting against a corrupt local government in the 20th century. >
  
  At best you turn the United States into Syria. If dictatorship comes to America, it will almost certainly be popular at first(or else it wouldn't have been established in the first place) >
  
  There is a pretty large gap between having a deterrent and full on civil war. Do you think the police would do stuff like this if those protesters were armed? When Cliven Bundy and his merry band of idiots pull their stunts guns aren't the only reason they get the kid glove treatment, but it is certainly a factor. >
  
  If they were armed they would have been shot from a distance or from armoured vehicles if/after they refused to surrender them to police. >
  
  Definitely has nothing to do with the incredible availability of tools that make killing someone as easy as pressing a button. Definitely not that. 
  Its probably that Americans are just inherently more violent than all the other humans. That's gotta be it. >
  
  I have encountered a surprising number of conservative people who shout to the skies how amazing and special and wonderful America is - but will in the very next breath say that we are a uniquely violent, bloodthirsty nation whose tendency towards brutal murder is so hopefully uncontrollable it's pointless to even try.
  Curious how that works in their brains. >
  
  I’m pretty sure they’re talking about “insert group they think is the problem” and not their small town >
  
  Can you really blame them?  Their thinking is no more shallow than yours.  Their small town has plenty of guns without the murder.
  Reality is, you know the real problem too you just never thought it through.
  If I ask you, "Why do black people commit 50% of the murders despite only being 13% of the population?" What is your answer going to be?
  If you know your stuff you will go on about systemic racism and how black people had opportunity  stolen from them as they were herded into densely populated poor via things like redlining in the 70s and 80s
  The onky reason black people commit a disproportionate % of violent crimes is because they make up a disproportionate % of the population in densely populated poor areas.
  Being black doesn't make someone more violent, black culture doesn't make someone more violent, but growing up in a densely populated poor area does make people more violent.  Thus it's the racism of America that put black people in that spot that created such outcomes.
  This is pretty much the standard response about violent crime among Black people and its dead on accurate 
  But I find it fascinating that the thinking stops there.
  
  
  Densely populated poor areas are the cause of disproportionate violence from black people
  
  
  Densely populated poor areas are the cause of disproportionate prison numbers
  
  
  Densely populated poor areas are the cause of over policing in black communities 
  
  
  Densely populated poor areas are the cause of police violence as they are also humans surrounded by violence
  
  
  If America broke up its densely populated poor areas crime, especially violent crime would drop dramatically.  Most the problems that face the black community stem from living in densely populated poor areas. Disbanding them would do wonders for America and black communities.
  Yet for some reason, you suggest organized gentrification, that helped the displaced land in a different spot is racism.
  Seems people think there is a super secret formula that just makes areas not poor and we should do that instead >
  
  several incredibly deep rooted unresolved social issues that create a fractured and disenfranchised populous. >
  
  It's not that complex.
  Densely populated poor areas create exponentially higher violent crime rates regardless of culture or race.  This is true throughout the world and history.
  Most western countries spread out their poor or intertwines it with the more well off.
  The US stacks their poor on top of each other >
  
  
  It's not that complex.
  
  it actually is. talk to a sociologist sometime.
  i've traveled around the world and seen some insanely dense cities with abysmal poverty that have a negligible violent crime rate. >
  
  I don't doubt you have seen immensely  dense cities that had some poverty in them.
  London is a great example. But what they don't have is densely populated poor areas like the US has. >
  
  no, not london. i'm talking about real poverty combined with insane density.
  the old kowloon was a great example. calcutta/kolkata with 15 million is another great example. cairo with 10 million is another great example. kinshasa with 17 million people is another great example.
  none of these places have a violent crime rate remotely close to what we experience in the US in most of our cities. i've been to places without running water, but i can walk around without fear or threat of violence. >
  
  Easy access to guns. High levels of poverty (and very high income and wealth gaps.) An eroded sense of community, including a gutted social safety net. Advanced drug war (not just simple drug prohibition but a decades long offensive by the government against its people.)  
  There are other factors but these are the prominent ones from my understanding. >
  
  American here- I can tell you why- access to guns and economic disparity. I am not Anti gun by any means but people have extremely easy access to weapons, and many will use those weapons out of desperation to do get access to money for food, drugs( legal and illegal)  transportation, alcohol and a litany of other things. >
  
  US has a higher rate of densely populated poor areas.
  Throughout the world, and history, densely populated  poor areas have produced exponentially higher violent crime rates.
  Other western nations spread their poor out, or intertwine their poor with other classes.
  If you stack poor people ontop of each other, it leads to far more violent crime regardless of race, culture, geography ortime period. >
  
  The USA murder rate is 1 for 100,000 for Asians, 3 for 100,000 for white Americans, and 15 for 100,000 for Black Americans.  So we are really 3 separate countries. >
  
  Yet the murder rate for white Americans is still worse than that for white Europeans. >
  
  Extreme poverty, racial divides, minimal social support, a culture based on money and "status" being valued above all else plus every angry kid or psycho can buy a gun for $5.99 at MacDonald's. >
  
  
  racial divides
  
  Most murders are intraracial (the victim and the murderer are the same race). >
  
  Sure, but the divides fuel resentment, poverty and the feeling that you need to join a gang to survive etc. >
  
  Was in a gang for years, all the shit you're mentioning is the last thought on a young minority's mind.  Only the privileged white people looking down on us as if we are are in some zoo enclosure believe this.