Thoughts On Violence

I dislike violence.  But I enjoy watching professional (and collegiate) American football and hockey games, and I used to get a kick out of watching professional wrestling.  These are violent sports, where injury is always possible.  Of course, I also enjoy horse back riding, both English and Western, and I have broken multiple bones and stopped counting concussions when the number got above 20...
  But I abhor the violence that seems more prevalent these days - gun and knife violence.  There have been more shootings at educational and shopping venues this past week.  Adults and children have been stabbed in their vehicles, in parks, and on the street.  I cannot sit back and keep my mouth shut...  What is happening to our society?  Why does it seem, apparently, that more and more people are using guns and knives to express and satisfy their anger and hurt?
  I'm the first to admit that I really love to read - and I read lots of mysteries, thrillers, fantasies and histories.  The mysteries and thrillers usually involve one or more deaths (and so, too, do the fantasies and histories) - but for me, these killings and deaths are at a "remove" - they are something I'm reading for entertainment, and unless the book is a history, are entirely fictional.  Someone makes up horrible crimes in their mind, and then sets a protagonist to solve the crime and deal with the evil-doer.  I enjoy them - and I'm always happy when the "bad guy" gets caught and turned over to the authorities, or, even killed by the protagonist...  But I'm very aware that this is fiction.  It is not real.  -  Reading history, on the other hand, can be sickening - reading of man's inhumanity to man over the years...  How "better" methods of torture were thought out, and more horrific ways to die were/are planned, is, to me, like stirring an old body, just to see what types of insects and creatures might appear.   On the one hand, you get to know how certain minds work; on the other hand, I always feel  - soiled - after reading how someone decides to "improve" suffering and death.
  Last night, while doing some research, I had the NBC network on...  I could glance from my PC monitor over to the television screen, and focus on what was happening there.  Last night, I enjoyed dipping in and out of an hour-long show about Shaun White, in his bid to make it to the Sochi Winter Olympics in two very different types of snowboard competition.  That program was followed by a re-run of an earlier The Blacklist, a thriller-type show about the man most-wanted by the US Government...  James Spader plays Raymond "Red" Reddington, and is excellent as a very nasty international player who helps the FBI capture people wanted on the Top Secret Blacklist.  I have always enjoyed Spader's acting prowess - and last night left me pondering...  In a scene in last night's episode, Red is trying to get a "tough guy" to give him some information.  The two are sitting at a table, and Red has secured the other man to a chair.  Red is smoking a cigar, and, as he continues to ask questions, which the other man won't answer, Red pours a flammable liquid all over the man's head, neck and chest.  Red threatens him with the glowing cigar tip, and the man finally gives Red the information he desires.  Red then shoves the lit cigar into the man's mouth - and stands there to watch the expected fireworks.  The cigar has burned down to a stub, and the man is frantically rolling his eyes and trying to keep the cigar from igniting the liquid in his moustache and beard.  Then, Red gives a light laugh, says, "Oh, the suspense is killing me," pulls a pistol from his pocket, and shoots the man with the cigar.  - I actually laughed when I saw this scene.
   During the night and this morning, I have pondered over my reaction.  My mind keeps telling me that another bad guy bit the dust.  It also says that "this is fiction!" And it also is revolted that Red can so cold-heartedly shoot the victim, who can't defend himself.  Characters die horribly throughout this series - shot, poisoned, burned to death, put into acid baths alive, beaten to death.  I watch it all, and am not appalled or sickened by the violence.   -  Is it because I am an older person, and know that such evil does exist in the world?  Or have I become immune to seeing and reading such things to such an extent that it no longer bothers me?  Is it because I know that this is fiction?
    But if I can accept these scenes of extreme violence and death as every day occurrences, why, then, am I so horrified by the fact that young people are going out and committing these crimes in real life?  Do we blames the news?  Do we blame the media?  Do we blame movies and television?  Or has our society just reached a point where we need a more restrictive "Big Brother" looking over our shoulders?  Why do the young people of today not seem to realize that the deaths of others is not an answer to their own pain?  Why do they feel that it is fine to take a gun and explosive devices and kill and hurt people they don't even know? I am just plain old puzzled  - and wish I knew the answers.
  (Please do not take this as the rant of someone who is anti-gun, or anti-knife.  Guns and knives are safe in the hands of trained individuals - it's the other folks who frighten me.)