The murder may count as gang violence whenever one of person is associated with gang - even if actual event happened due to jealousy or other crap. And being associated with gang can be also just due to who you know.

The point is, gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence.

> gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence

This is just false. The reason gang violence is separated out is that gang violence is perpetrated against other gang members.

I.e. the gun violence rate for non-gang members is dramatically lower.

It doesn’t mean gang violence is not a problem. It does mean that unless you are in a gang, the US doesn’t have a high murder rate.

I'm sure for young men growing up in certain neighborhoods, opting out of gang membership is less straight forward than you make it sound.

> is less straight forward than you make it sound.

Where do you think I comment on the ease of opting out of gangs?

Where the violence takes place in public, the relationship between the perpetrators and victims, the fact that both parties are usually armed, that bystanders are often caught in crossfire, the motives for the violence being beefs over territory, and the minimal events required to trigger the violence.

Except for those and more, it's just like any other violence.

Why exclude gang violence? The US has armed gangs.

I think the argument is usually in the context of "it's mostly people involved with gangs, it doesn't change much for the murder risk for a 'normal citizen'"