this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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No-one has said it, but the USA seems to be an inherently more violent society than any other western nation.
Even without guns, the murder and violence rates are significantly higher per capita than anywhere else in the western world.
Why? It would have to be a guess. It could be poor education. It could be the rampant levels of poverty and drug abuse.
It could be some old pioneer fetish where people think they're some sort of cowboy maybe.
In the USA a cleaning woman was shot and killed because she knocked on the wrong door. That would never happen anywhere else. You had the young black boy shot and killed for simply walking down the street. That would never happen anywhere else.
And those aren't even extreme examples. Like seriously, wtf? Imagine you have a kid going to a friends house and having to worry that he might be shot and killed if he takes a wrong turning somewhere.
What is for sure is that whenever something horrific happens in Europe/Canada/Australia/NZ, there is a sensible and rational conversation about how to prevent it happening again.
There is something seriously wrong in the american psyche
I'm sure education is a big part of it, but also, and perhaps linked, a lot seem... terrified?
In the examples you give, that pure blast of hate can be driven by fear. That sort of person (not exclusively American) is scared of anyone who's different to them. Thats why they like guns, to make themselves feel safer (ignoring the irony that having a gun makes someone statistically less safe), why they're so chest-thumpingly desparate to show the world they're strong and fearless.
I think you’re onto something here, and I think it’s a feature, not a bug. The US have been at war the entire time since WW2, but they usually don’t have a draft. So they need to rely on different methods to motivate young men into becoming soldiers. An integral part of being a soldier is the use of violence to solve problems, usually to the point where you might be expected to kill. If your society sees violence and killing unacceptable you’re gonna have a hard time finding people who wanna sign up to do the killing for you. So you honor your veterans more than any other part of your population, you make movies and games about valiant soldiers fighting for the good cause and step by step you slowly manufacture a cultural climate that says killing and violence are legit means of achieving a goal, sometimes even necessary.