Many of us see the USA through your "Hollywood window", media reports and statistics. Imagine how easy it is to be worried about your personal safety.
The reason I do not plan to visit is because of that image about gun-totin', mentally unstable nation out of touch with reality with bizarre and secret laws which are in the worst case enforced by trigger-happy people with less than 5 months of training. Terrifying. But you aren't actually safe from them in a different continent either: attending to a wedding in Mid East can be lethal...