I've noted east coast and flyover country nonsense

so let's look in granola country:
Over the past 2 1/2 years in Southern California, three people have been killed after trying to stop graffiti vandals in the act. A fourth died after being shot while watching a confrontation between crews in a park.

"We have seen a marked increase in these graffiti-tagging gangs taking to weapons and fighting to protect their walls, their territory, their name," said Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Robert Rifkin. (bold mine)

This is just friggin' rediculous.

For some taggers, protecting their work is akin to defending their names and their honor.

"If we see someone calling the police, then we target them," said Mario Garcia, 20, who describes himself as a former tagger trying to become a professional artist. "You are trying to stop me from what I live, what I believe in and what I breathe? We are not going to let no one get in the way."
You, Garcia, are a miserable little jerk. You think you have some privilege to damage public and private property, and now you think you have some right to hurt people who object. And, if we're lucky, one of the people you decide to target is going to return a load of buckshot and remove you from their misery.

Artist Dartagnan Curiel, 31, said he used to scrawl graffiti and grew sick of the violence. He now paints murals with positive messages as a way to speak out against the bloodshed in his Los Angeles neighborhood and to encourage graffiti vandals and gang members to lay down their arms.

"Why would you want to put spray paint on a kid's face?" he says. "We live in the same community. We are all in this hellhole together."
Hey, 'artist' dumbass, who helped make it a hellhole?