I don't think anyone is dismissing the correlation. The U.S. has more guns and more firearm deaths than most developed countries. That's obvious. What I'm questioning is whether that automatically means gun availability is the primary cause of the violence, or whether it's one factor among several. You say every country has gangs, drugs, mental illness, social dysfunction and violent offenders, that's true. But not every country has them to the same degree, in the same places or with the same cultural influences. America also has some unique problems. We have cities where gang culture is glorified, where kids grow up around violence, where repeat offenders cycle through the system and where social media turns killers into celebrities overnight. When I was growing up, guns were common. What wasn't common was kids wanting to shoot up schools, livestream attacks or become famous for committing murder. Something changed, and I don't think the answer is simply that there are more guns. To me, saying "America has more guns and more gun deaths" is the starting point of the discussion, not the end of it. The question I'm interested in is why America seems to be producing more people willing to commit these acts in the first place. Because if the root problem is cultural decay, gangs, mental health, broken families, drugs and the glorification of violence, then focusing primarily on the gun may reduce some outcomes without ever addressing the reason those outcomes are happening. That's why I keep coming back to the people and the culture. Guns may affect the severity of violence, but they don't explain why someone decided to commit violence in the first place.
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