Remember, it's not a gun problem
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Is there any data that separates shootings by geography, as opposed to race? Curious to see if this is skewed by hotspots.
Considering the majority of black people in the US live in urban areas, I'd say there's not much of a skew on geography. You don't exactly see a lot of black families living in rural Illinois, but you'll damn sure see a lot of gang shootings every weekend in Chicago (a supposed gun-free zone, mind you).
Southern Illinois actually has a quite a large (proportionally) black population. Cairo, Illinois has a very interesting and tragic race history. You don’t stop when you drive through that town if you can help it and it is basically the definition of white flight.
Not to mention East St Louis, which is on the IL side of the border. And Springfield has gotten pretty black. Decatur, famously so. Kankakee is darker than it once was. Even small towns like Jacksonville are seeing an influx of black populations.
Still it'd be interesting. As a teenager I lived in a suburb of a city with a fairly large black population, the suburb of which had a still fairly high, but much lower number of blacks. I went to high school with a fair number of them, and as far as I know, not a single black person in my class ever so much as committed a misdemeanor much less gun crime.
At this point, I want to say that high black population density is the cause of crime, and its the presence of white people (such as in suburbs) that suppresses crime in otherwise diverse neighborhoods. In Texas, where I live, much like the rest of the South, you also have the phenomena of majority black rural towns with populations of 3,000 or less. These towns also have a pretty high crime rate, though obviously it is far lower than the urban black crime rate. As far as I'm aware, the concept of the "black rural town" is completely alien to yankees.
Oh I totally get that. That said, I would be willing to bet that part of the reason for the violence is the vicious cycle . Something like "I need to learn to shoot and fight so I can stay ahead of the violent people around me. If I don't show them I'm tough, I will be their victim one day."
The few people I've talked to who came from violent neighborhoods said they had to completely change their attitudes toward life once they got away.
Being from the South, the one place where black populations exist in large quantities outside the major urban sprawls, I can say that its quite a similar breakdown even in the moral dilapidated and semi-rural areas of the Swamps.
So, while its likely being in the big city exacerbates the root factors, it still seems to be prevalent outside it based on my experiences.