Actually I never made a reference to race, that was John. And even if the murder rate is much higher in the African American community, that is still an American culture issue. The murder problem in (my opinion) America is not a gun problem it is a problem with the American culture and was largely driven by the war on drugs.
Just a few months ago a neighbor of mine was raided by a swat team from a city approx 40 miles away. They rammed the front door, threw in flash grenades and entered the house with full body armor and M-16s drawn. My neighbors dog retreated into the garage and hid so the swat team sent in a bomb robot to extract it. Luckily no one was home at the time, but they were called and they showed up to see what was happening. No arrests were made.
These kinds of raids occur because we have militarized police departments for the war on drugs. The police use high risk, high violence entries because we have incentivized them with seizure laws and federal grants. Police do not serve normal knock warrants anymore because the people inside may dispose of the drugs. A knock warrant would be far safer and still curb crime. What it wont do is allow the police to seize the house and property, and get federal dollars for large drug seizures.
I am amazed that people are shocked by American violence! We have fully militarized police everywhere. (A motorcycle cop who was handing out tickets by the freeway on-ramp also had an AR-15/M-16 folding stock weapon mounted on his motorcycle; American police carry sidearms and have assault weapons or shotguns mounted in their cars or motorcycles.) We are engaged in unilateral war all over the planet. We have the largest actively deployed military in the world. People are constantly bombarded with propaganda proclaiming how dangerous their lives are. Violent movies, violent video games… Violence is an American staple. The news always highlights violence and horrible incidents like the recent shootings only stress that the government can’t protect you.
All of this in the face of the lowest murder rates in 40 years.
Yet when the murder rate in America is 4.8 per 100,000 compared to England’s 1.4 per 100,000 people are flummoxed.