For people who are already extremely religious, the experience of losing a child will only strengthen their spirituality. “Part of God’s plan” is their coping mechanism.
Only after they burn out in their 60hr jobs paying for their medical debt and kids will the lessons start to be learned. But it sounds like they lucked out with wealthy families who were able to step in and help.
Malcolm Gladwell talks on his podcast about how U.S. hospitals have made huge strides in preventing gun-related deaths in recent years (except in minority cases where hospitals are too far). We also have very little data on non-death gun-related injuries, making it impossible to say whether crime rates are improving when it comes to guns. The last two episodes in the series explain the crime perception pretty well.
In fact, this post alludes the fact that the number of assaults in the US has been on an increase since 2013. https://www.statista.com/statistics/191231/reported-aggravated-assault-rate-in-the-us-since-1990/