Violence in North America

Humanities history is strewn with violence and death from the beginning of recorded history and before humans have fought with each other either for land, wealth, religion or any personal vendetta. However humanity has now reached a point in its evolutionary stage where violence is not required, it is in fact looked upon with disappointment. So why in a society where violence is not necessary is there so much of it? Everyday people can read about the new atrocious acts being committed in the surrounding areas.
Reasons for violence can extend from a lovers quarrell to trafficking drugs to a fight over religiouse beliefs to gangland rivalry. Most violence doesn't make it to the news or to the papers because nobody was seriously injured or nobody was killed, however everyday there are new stories where people were killed or seriously injured due to violence. The media plays a large role in advocating violence and at the same time disuading violence, the effect of this is many people believe that violence is wrong in any way while others believe it is a way of running the world.
Violence has changed over the course of history, before as soon as one combatant was injured or killed the fight would be ended, in today's society violence is carried out to a new degree where the bodies of the deceased are mutilated.
The changes in our society have caused a decrease in the number of violent acts but an increase in the seriouseness of that violent act, some different reasons for it could be that our children are not disciplined as much as they once were, the media tries to show the most disturbing images or ideas that they can come up with for shock value, and religion is no longer as large a part in the world as it once was, the number of people that are religious today is a fraction of the people that were religiouse a hundred years ago. So the question now is are humans violent because of the situation they are put into or are they violent by nature.