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A nation (or state) doesn't exist just because a person says it does. Or, perhaps I mean to say, it only exists because collectively everyone says and believes it does. Nations and states are not a product of natural forces. Even with an external pressure unifying people, it's probably still necessary to tell them again and again they are part of a unified group. Who was it who wrote about that? Locke?
The Marxists are just as much a product as gun violence. We don't need to ban their Marxism, but rather to solve the underlying problem motivating it. It appears to me that many of America's institutions are fraying.
Consider - for better or for worse, once New Zealand made available Covid vaccinations, the uptake was an almost immediate 90+%, and has reached around 96%. Regardless of what you or I individually think about vaccines, it is indicative of belief and trust in the institutions.
Some problems can be rather cyclical. Take for example, in the far north, there are many indigenous communities living in relative poverty. Sometime around 20-30 years ago, drug runners started getting narcotics into the country with that area as the entry point. The communities were vulnerable, and drug use became widespread. The downstream effect is that many children from that area and time have grown up without one or both of their parents, and/or have mental or physical issues, leading them to be one of the single largest factors in an uptick in crime. There were many interventions that could have been effective, and most of which the US population would have been largely opposed to, because there is in large part a culture that a person's circumstances are almost entirely of their own making.
I don't think individualism (or gun ownership) is necessarily incompatible with social cohesion, but it makes for a vicious cycle when the circumstances of some members of that community get bad enough that they turn to crime and violence.
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One key difference, I think, can be illustrated by an example: If a typical American knew their neighbor were struggling, they would be highly unlikely to give money or help to their neighbor, even if they knew that, in practical terms, it would make their own children and family safer. Why give to someone who had the moral failing of not working or providing for his or herself?
Here, culturally, you're much more likely to see the average person or family say, "It doesn't matter why they're struggling, why haven't we helped them sooner?" A member of the community who is struggling is not seen as having failed, but rather as having been failed at some point in the past.
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