The US has a tremendous amount of "Armed Criminals" that do not respect gun laws. Much of the gun violence is gang on gang shootings with innocent victims getting caught in the crossfire, or gang members getting shot/killed themselves.
The FBI touts keeping a watch on 1.4 million violent gang members in the U.S. That does not include all of the other tens to hundreds of thousands of criminals, terrorists, and other bad characters. Reference: https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/gangs
One of the major factors is that there is a societal problem in that approximately 80% of youth and adult criminals in the USA come from fatherless homes. As kids in order to fill in the gaps caused by the lack of a father in the home and typical resulting dysfunctional households, they get involved with groups and gangs that lead them into lives of crime. The fact is that criminals are the murders and never law-abiding citizens. Makes sense right?
We have 100 million law-abiding gun owners that do not commit crimes, but many have used their weapons to stop crimes to the tune of tens of thousands and some estimates are in the hundreds of thousands of times annually. Most of the time the police are the clean-up crews after rapes, murders and other crimes have already been committed. The armed citizenry is the first line of defense. The armed citizenry is the first line of defense against crime. When everyone is unarmed except murderous criminals and terrorists, the armed criminals have total control over their helpless victims. It is common sense that disarming good people only helps bad armed people.
Another major factor is that our many gun-laws are not enforced in many major cities so violent criminals run wild. In many cases, Democrat Governors and Mayors are crime appeasers and actively work against police for political gain. For example, New York is trying to enact laws that exposes police tactics to stop terror before it happens. This only helps terrorist. Ref: http://nypost.com/2017/06/14/nypd-calls-city-council-plan-to-reveal-anti-terror-tactics-insane/
DeBlasio is one of the most anti-police Mayors in the USA. Violent crime shot up in NYC since he attacked his own NYPD police force, and thus they were forced to stop more aggressive policing tactics in the extremely violent parts of the city. The innocent residents pay the price of DeBlasio's attempts at personal gain by use of the politics of division. This is common in areas run by Democrat politicians. Obama himself kept releasing violent criminals onto U.S. streets. Somehow Democrats feel this is a political gain for them. Here is just one report where Obama released over 166,000 criminal illegal aliens onto American streets. Ref: http://www.westernjournalism.com/obama-admin-releases-166000-criminal-illegal-aliens/
Also, Democrat politicians fight to keep the status quo among FAILING government schools. Approximately 5 million kids (mainly black and Hispanic) are FORCED to attend government school dropout factories every year. This leaves these children at a major disadvantage for jobs and more likely to be unemployed and put on government assistance. No matter how the Dems try to make it seem OK to be on Govt assistance, it crushes the spirit and represses the natural drive we all have to succeed on our own. This causes behavioral problems that can lead to addictions, crime, domestic abuse and many other negative issues. This cycle of Democrat oppression of minorities has continued for generations and those communities across the nation have paid the price with poverty, crime, murder and destruction.
Another major factor causing poverty is that our politicians from all parties are bought and paid for by global business interests that screw the USA workforce. This has skyrocketed our Welfare state to over $1 Trillion annually. Again, everyone has an innate desire to succeed, but when suppressed by political misbehavior that causes massive under and unemployment, people feel hopeless and once again are likely to engage in the negative behaviors previously mentioned.
Thanks for your work as a doctor. I hope you do exceptionally well on Steemit and with your career. Your comment is appreciated.