Where did you go? Culiacan? Mazatlan? If you stuck exclusively to the tourist areas and made sure you were on red alert all the time, and tried to avoid wandering anywhere or having any sort of confrontation, then you would be fine for the most part... but that in itself isn't normal. By having that sort of discipline out of fear goes beyond the scope of normal tourist precautions.

Also, even though the US is dangerous in its own right, and has plenty of issues, it is not at all comparable to Mexico. The US homicide rate is a quarter of Mexico's and it has been declining sharply over the past few years. There's nothing like the cartels in the country, most of the crime is localized. There aren't organized crime syndicates running entire cities.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's a safe place though