Although it chills me to say this, I think that the vein of violence that is rooted in indigenous genocide and African slavery also circulates the blood supply that nourishes both empire energy and capitalist entrepreneurship. As such, the depth to which both domestic and international violence are ingrained and interwoven into the fabric of US society is terribly unlikely to suddenly unravel and modulate itself. This makes both gun violence and neocolonialist imperialism almost inevitable as symptoms of the late-stage neoliberal capitalist experiment. Am I a pessimist or a realist? I can't quite decide.