Irrespective of their type, crimes always bring damage and suffering to the victims. High incidence of crimes and overcrowded prisons make the whole society anxious. Hate crimes are, perhaps, even more dangerous than theft or robbery. The scale of hate crimes may be tremendous: terrorist attack and mass shootings are predominantly hate crimes.
The bias towards religious and gender groups accelerated the formation of numerous hate groups. As a nationally miscellaneous country, the US houses numerous hostile organizations which can easily find victims and attack in the broad daylight. Annually, FBI detects more new organizations which are about to attack social groups of particular racial or gender origin.
Victims of the hate crimes are more scared and vulnerable than victims of any other crimes. Victims realize that they will be endangered to the hate attacks as long as intolerance is preserved in the society. And this problem is hard to combat. Researchers admit that psychological distress in hate crime victims may last up to 5 years while victims of non-bias-motivated crimes are distressed for about 2 years. However, hate crimes incidents strengthen relationships between members of the targeted ethnic or cultural community.
Members of the targeted ethnic identity community experience more fear than members of a geographic community where a hate crime happened. People are overwhelmed with fear and take all possible measures to protect themselves and their families. Gun ownership is a two-edged sword; it can be treated both as a protection and a threat. In the environment where most people have an open access to firearms, chances of emerging armed conflicts skyrocket.