Most Americans recognize it’s a complicated issue.
The 538 article is garbage.
Re the decline in crime, most New Yorkers, and educated people who follow James Q Wilson or Heather MacDonald, have known for decades that NYC’s murder rate and violent crime rate generally declined by about 85% between the year Giuliani was elected and the year De Blasio was elected.
James Q Wilson attributed this partly to the decline in the use of lead paint, as you note, but much more important was Compustat tactics and aggressive policing; more and longer incarceration of violent offenders; and the steep reduction in the use and trafficking of crack cocaine.
I suspect that many more Americans are aware of some/all of these causes in the sharp fall in violent crime from 1994-2014 than you or the whelps at 538 think. It’s a fair bet that most Americans now understand the post-2014 implications of what Heather MacDonald calls the “Ferguson effect.”
Anyway, that’s it for me. Peace out.