While reading the replies I was surprised to begin recalling incident after incident,of violence I've seen or my family have experienced. I was more surprised when I realised I hadn't even thought about them before now, even with all the tv shows and writing in this thread. Those sorts of incidents should stick out in our lives as something quite shocking, but I guess the truth is that it's become so commonplace.
My brother has been stabbed twice, he's had his arm in a cast for 5 months now and may need surgery (the bone hasn't set properly), because he punched a drunk guy who attacked him in town.
When he was staying at his girlfriends house in Govan two drunk guys buzzed the door and tried to get into the flat, and when they opened the door to see who it was, they pushed themselves into the flat. My brother and his friend who was also there wrestled them out again, and had to barricade the door, his girlfriend called the police but they took ages to come. In the meantime the guys outside got big heavy plant pots from some garden and chucked them through one of the bedroom windows.
Needless to say they moved out of that flat pretty sharp
My dad was walking home from the pub one night and walked into the middle of two local gangs fighting, he got seriously injured, still remember being about 10-11 and seeing my dad in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs, and the ambulance coming and my mum hysterical.
I could go on... but you get the point. I think kids growing up now see violence as a part of life, they see fighting and bullying in schools, maybe parents or siblings fighting at home, parents letting their 7 year olds play GTA and watch violent rated movies (and then have the audacity to blame tv / games / music for the problem). I'm not saying we need to live in a censored society with fake happy everywhere , we just need to be more aware of the environment we're introducing to our kids at a young age when they can't distinguish between fantasy and reality and have no idea about the consequences of the crimes they could commit.