so basically the answer is "because black people and poor people are scary"?

lol ... is that what it said? I didn't even read it.

well there's a section titled "Gang Bangers and the Knockout Game"
with the gem of a line
as if that makes it any better at all?

Maybe I should read that. Hang on...

The examples they cite are (1) military case in the Philippines (2) a police officer and (3) the knockout game of which they provide an example which doesn't fit the description they offer.
Then there is (4) the "scenario" the train for of four or five criminals attacking you.

1 and 2 are irrelevant, no one is talking about limiting military or police weapons. 3 and 4 don't support their argument, because as we all know, criminals are the first to get and carry guns. You know the slogan, if guns are illegal ... etc. So a 15 round tek-9 isn't going to do much against four gangbangers who also have tek-9s.

also, like, the number of people not involved in the drug trade or gang life, who are intentionally attacked or killed by gang members, is unbelievably small. Like, single digits a year. Almost all armed robberies/muggings are entirely unrelated to gangs, because gangs have much better shit to do than draw heat for going after "civilians".

Meanwhile, hundreds die to accidental discharges, "freak" accidents (that aren't really "freak" because they happen pretty often), domestic violence, and the pandemic nature of gun violence in general in this country. The whole article is entirely illogical, nonsensical, and disingenuous.

According to the FBI, the violent crime rate has dropped to half of what it was in 1992.

The murder rate? Same thing - it dropped nearly fifty percent as well to only 4.7 per 100,000.

It's still higher than any other "first-world" nation, and terrifyingly high. Just cause it's not as bad as it has been doesn't mean we shouldn't be fucking ashamed.

I'm not terrified.
I even travel below the Mason Dixon line on a regular basis.

just because you aren't terrified doesn't invalidate the narratives of the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who do have to worry about leaving their houses, walking through their neighborhoods, living their day-to-day lives in cities with higher mortality rates than some warzones. Just because your narrative and your privilege tells one story doesn't mean those with different stories are invalid.

It doesn't make their fears rational either.

are you seriously arguing that violent crime doesn't claim thousands and thousands of lives every year in highly localized areas, and that therefore people in those areas have nothing to fear from the violence, especially gun violence, in their neighborhoods?
even the ones have lost friends and family members, sometimes more than one, to violence in their neighborhoods?

Nope.

I've been known to hang out below the poverty line, myself. ;)