Maybe it's linked to gun ownership, I don't know .. but, outside of it, there's just a general gung-ho attitude among Americans that you don't see elsewhere .. A shoot first, ask questions later attitude. Underneath the cop uniform and behind the badge there is a human being, yet the first thought when somebody makes off from you in a car is to whip out a gun and start shooting away like John Wayne? I don't understand that.
Nigh on everyone in the US seems to come across wanting to be a potential movie star or TV personality or over enthusiastically shouting "Woohoo!" and high fiving each other over the smallest things making out that they are some sort of big shot. Politicians or those in the media and news come on TV with their plastic skin, OTT fake tans, their perfectly styled wigs, the blindingly white teeth talking about their love of God in their voices straight from TV Adverts.
I have American cousins and when we've visited each other they quickly become tiresome .. there's one thing being energetic and enthusiastic but everything is just so over the top, 100mph and full of drama.
Generally, in the many times I've visited, I think America is great and, on some level, so are many of the people I've met (to a point, as I said above) ... but beyond gun ownership (as I say, it may be linked) - there's something seriously .. I don't know the right word .. Wrong? Messed up? Present? .. in the psyche of many Americans that maybe plays a small part in things like this or mass shootings or just general America being America things that we see on the news daily.