Also if you look at crime over the last 5 decades, it’s not that America is inherently more violent, we were at the same level of most of Western Europe. Violent crime dropped everywhere but it dropped faster in most OECD as quality of life improved for even the poorest and weapons were restricted.
Europe doesn’t have the mass shootings and in particular not in schools. It is not about violence, but about shootings.
If you wanted to fault two events that make the US the outlier in regards to a persistently high murder rate in the US it would be the 1977 “Revolt in Cincinnati” that put the gun manufacturing lobby in charge of the NRA, and the GOP constant assault of social welfare programs starting in 1981.
All agreed, - I think that the right wing of the US judiciary including SCOTUS has a big part in that development.
Again it’s not that things in the US got worse, though there was an uptick in urban violence from the 1970s until the mid-1990s, it’s that it failed to get better as fast as everyone else.
I think the crime bubble did a lot of damage to our national psyche because it created an era of paranoia about violent criminals, and created the narrative that being Dirty Harry levels of Tough On Crime was the best solution.
I also have the impression that the gun industry switched at some point from courting the rural market to courting the more lucrative urban market, and this meant a switch in marketing from “isn’t it nice to hunt with your father or son?” to a more “people want to kill you in your sleep!” approach.
It’s worse, they are feeding both sides of the paranoia divide, and making firearms less safe in the process. Look at the near disappearance of thumb safeties on pistols in the last 40 years. It part of this marketing that you always have to be ready to kill at a moment’s notice.
Hell the U.S. DOD had to get Sig Sauer to add a thumb safety to the p320 so they could buy it, and the damn thing will still go off in your holster. www.upi.com/amp/Top_News...
What’s the old saying? Poverty is the mother of crime? 🤔