reason #2 why I would never visit that country (#1 is the mass shootings and gun mania) (tbh the only thing I’d want to visit to begin with are the giant sequoia in California)

How… how much gun violence do you think actually happens here? There’s a lot by number, and that’s a serious fucking issue, but the US is also massive. It’s not a regular or frequent danger of normal life here. Even those numbers are pumped up by the fact that suicide by gun is counted in the exact same “gun violence” statistics as gang violence, and the “school shootings” statistics include all from the “gun violence” stats that occur within a certain radius around, regardless of when it happened (summer break, middle of the night, etc) or if it was any danger to students. News overfocuses on shit like that because it pulls eyes and clicks, and therefore ad revenue. Again, it is a serious fucking problem, but it’s not the kind of thing you’re going to experience in daily life or as a tourist.

You should travel. It will open your eyes to the shit going on in America that apparently you Americans think is “normal”.

I have and do, likely more than you. Thanks for patronizing! That doesn’t change my point, that the danger of gun violence is a problem, but is considerably made out to be worse than the reality by the media. Like, we have states larger than some European countries. If you took the reporting on all the bad shit happening over the equivalent space/population amount in Europe it would be pretty fucking harrowing as well. I’ve known multiple people fall into a life of constant anxiety due to overexposing themselves to the media. Convinced that every city was a fucking gun violence warzone. That horrible things were happening all the time. They didn’t know anyone who knew anyone who had experienced the things they were convinced were regular horrible occurences. And they knew more than one person (mutual friends) that worked and lived in the US city with the highest homicide rate at the time. None of those people had been even in the vicinity of gun violence. I’ve been around for nearly 35 years, and I enjoy talking with people. I’ve met only one single person who had been a victim of gun violence, in that they were robbed at gunpoint while working nights at a gas station in a rough area. There are fucking studies about this shit that are over 15 years old that show that exposure to news media back then caused people to ridiculously overestimate the frequency of crime (and especially violent crime). News has only become more emotionally charged since. I’m not saying America is some amazing place. I’m just saying that the news would have you believe that almost everyone here has had a gun violence experience, or that visitng the US is unsafe because of gun violence, when that’s not the case.