I think this is getting a little overheated.  Highway robbers have been a
part of life since the Middle Ages at least.  It's human nature to look
at history through rose colored glasses, but random acts of violence have
been a ceaseless part of our heritage.  Overall, life is better now than it
ever was then.  It's just that random individual acts of violence have
never
been historically significant, and record keeping in the past was never
good
enough to retain them all.  