Unfortunately birth rates, and sadly mortality rates, were such that it produced a fairly strong decline in just simply the number of kids who were most susceptible during the period starting roughly in 1990-'91. The peaking of the crack cocaine epidemic. That removed the co-morbidity of the concurrent epidemic. If you have two diseases at the same time, with your body already weakened from battling the first one, the effect of the second one can be devastating. But the mechanism for the spread of gun violence is social, and that hasn't changed.
Guns are status symbols necessary to inner-city life.
When I was growing up, having a James Dean identity was pretty cool. There's sort of a cultural toolkit that people pick and choose from. The highest social status is given to the young males who commit acts of extreme mayhem, Fagen maintains. In the middle are the males who are capable of holding their own. Although the inner city gun homicides are in decline, school shootings seem to be escalating.