I don’t think there any single all-encompassing problems or answers here. Do you think that American “gun culture” is part of the problem?
Several have mentioned the War on Drugs, but that only goes back to the 1980s. Violent crime in America has been a serious, unusual-for-the-First-World problem for far longer than that.
Maybe it isn’t a “gun” problem as much as it is a “quick and easy solution” problem.We want our problems to be gone fast and easy because we have better things to do, and the violent solution is usually the fastest and the easiest.
In this link from San Francisco about Suspects who used firearms (warning PDF)
http://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms/Part11Suspects.pdf
And in this section of the report about victims of firearm violence (warning PDF)
http://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms/Part7Criminal.pdf
So here is where both sides are wrong. The problem is mostly crime and what criminals do to other criminals. But neither side seems interested in solving those core problems. We always just waste our time on these window dressing types of legislation. (on both sides)
President Nixon officially declared a “war on drugs” in 1971 but the problems were around before that even before the temperance movement.
But in reality that rephrasing was probably done due to the changing times and that it could no longer be called a “negro problem.”
Remember that prohibition only ended for the “white” drugs a.k.a. booze.
Which gun culture are you referring to?
The gun culture promoted by Hollywood, which shows guns as talismanic Objects of Power which require no training to use safely and send bullets unerringly directly into the hearts of Bad Guys (who always die with a single shot)?
The gun culture of the urban streets, where carrying a “piece” is a way of demonstrating to all that You Are A Man, and “capping” someone gives you street cred?
The gun culture of gun magazines, where all the big ads are promoting Scary Looking pseudomilitary guns and tacticool vests? (“Buy these and you’ll be just like a real soldier! But with the advantage that you won’t actually have to go off to grubby little far away countries where other people will be shooting real bullets at you!”)
The gun culture of most hunters and target shooters, where guns are seen as particularly deadly tools which ALWAYS must be treated with respect?
There’s more than one “gun culture” in America. I don’t find the last one I mentioned problematic at all, but the other three are an entirely different story.
(As an aside, I found the recent thread about violent first-person shooter videogames very amusing. Almost everyone in that thread was defending those games, saying they don’t change a person’s outlook at all - but I bet the majority of those people would be absolutely HORRIFIED if I told them I make a regular point of aiming my unloaded pistol at my TV and “shooting” various actors and actresses. But what’s the difference, really? Shooting at realistic images of people is shooting at realistic images of people. The difference is that I don’t view what I’m doing as a game, but as something deadly serious - but isn’t that the attitude anyone who keeps a gun around for self-defense should cultivate? I suspect most of those videogamers just see their violent games as harmless fun - but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out that some of these spree killers are in fact using them in the same way I’m using shooting at my TV set - as a way to break down the instinctive reluctance most of us have to harm another person, so that when it comes time to pull the trigger for real, they won’t hesitate.)
Give the man a prize! We’re addicted to “quick and easy”, especially if we can somehow also combine it with 'violent."
The gun culture I encounter in my area of central Kentucky is what you’re describing, though there is also an element of self-defense and concealed carry, not only hunting and target shooting. Gun owners tend to be taught from a young age, own and shoot guns their whole lives, and pass the tradition and values on to their children.
I agree that there is no singular American gun culture.
Would that be the gun culture exemplified by one of our former Vice Presidents?
Perhaps, I have no idea if Cheney was taught to shoot as a boy by his parents, nor if he taught his children to shoot.
When the Cheney incident happened, was there any backlash from pro-gun groups and/or hunting organizations?
There sure was! Everyone was mocking him for his poor muzzle control. “Accident,” my ass - he was careless (and probably drunk as well), and it could have cost his friend his life.
I don’t know about official statements from such groups, but he was certainly criticized amongst gun owners I know. I can search for any official reaction over the weekend.
I hope there was.
Isn’t this a Non sequitur? Is anyone putting the banning of ownership or hunting with double barrel shotguns?
Or is the fact that rich people go drinking and do dumb things a defining part of “gun culture” in some way that relates to gun control?
I can promise you that taking shots when someone is in front of the fire line retriving a bird is NOT part of any gun culture I know about not that it matters one iota to the dicussion at hand.
You really couldn’t deduce that from my use of the word “root”? 
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Maybe we should be celebrating what is going right. I’ve pointed this out in several threads by now but it seems to fall on deaf ears: violent crime is way down since the peak in the early 90s. Sure we can still do better, sure we are still more violent than other industrialized nations, but something is going right on the root causes front. Can’t say I know what.
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Do a better job keeping legally acquired guns from getting into the hands of those who have no legal right to have them. One chart I have seen states that largest source of weapons used in crimes is from family and friends … and I suspect many of those were “borrowed” without the family or friends knowledge secondary to lax storage. Education about that can help some even without new laws, And yes, spend some energy cracking down more on straw man purchases and corrupt dealers who ignore extant laws.
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As noted elsewhere, do a better job preventing the root causes of suicide, the area of gun deaths that most notably have not decreased. I believe that doing that will also decrease the mass murder events as well.
then they’d make fake marriages to remove them, so it should be: ankle bracelets w/ GPS on all males between the ages of 16 and 30.
You can already carry the Constitution anywhere you want