[dsfyu404ed]

The largest single chunk of the violence is just the settling of drug industry business disputes. If the people doing the shooting had badges and got their pay stubs on state letterhead most people here wouldn't blink twice.

Whereas you may lean on an expensive and complicated court system to send an employee of the state to apply violence (or threats thereof) to someone who had wronged you until they right their wrong people in the drug industry has no such luxury since their disputes will not he heard by a court. Likewise they must DIY it. That means home invasions, shootings, etc, etc.

Back before people in these lines of work shot at each other (have you ever tried doing a drive by on horseback with a 6 shooter, doesn't work very well) over these sorts of disputes people would round up friends and beat each other up or people would torch houses.

Bringing our massive illegal economy out of the shadows would clean up a huge fraction of the violence by replacing a lot of it with threat of state violence. See prohibition for an example of the reverse case.