We all see the signals because there is a universal code of violence. You'll find some of what you need to break that code in the following chapters, but most of it is in you. In this same sense, the energy of violence moves through our culture. Some experience it as a light but unpleasant breeze, easy to tolerate. Others are destroyed by it, as if by a hurricane.
Violence is a part of America, and more than that, it is a part of our species.
It is around us, and it is in us. As the most powerful people in history, we have climbed to the top of the world food chain, so to speak. Lest anyone doubt this, understand that in the last two years alone, more Americans died from gunshot wounds than were killed during the entire Vietnam War. Our armed robbery rate is one hundred times higher than Japan's. In part, that's because we are a nation with more firearms than adults, a nation where 20,000 guns enter the stream of commerce every day.