Is Violence Our First Option to Solve Problems?

I'm sure many of us are apalled at the violence committed in schools lately. It seems that the innocent and available make good targets. Today I was reading the Letters to the Editor section in the Salt Lake Tribune and I came upon a letter written by a woman from a small town south of here. She said we shouldn't be surprised by people using guns to kill to try to solve thier problems. That seems to be the way Americans handle problems and grief lately. We were attacked by a small group of terrorists who killed nearly 3000 people. Did we get international police units to catch the perpetrators? No, we attacked another soverign country, destroying it's arguably cruel government,killing many others and still didn't kill or capture the mastermind. Then before that project was done, we invaded another soverign country, with a nasty dictator whom we had previously supported, and destroyed that government,telling the people they had to form a government of our chosing.How arrogant is that?. Our children and teens spend hours playing video games using guns to wipe out imaginary people, but does that deaden thier sensabilities? We watch movies that glorify violence and "might makes right" themes. Our young boys join gangs where shooting someone is a right of passage. I'm just paraphrasing her letter here and much of my own opinion is here. Her last paragraph though is very meaningful. She says of Americans, "We are better than that" and hopefully, she's right. Hopefully, we can reclaim our humanity and some civilised behavior. As she mentions, if the shooter in Colorado had been armed with a ballbat, the outcome could have been different.