[Double Naught Spy]

Don't be so sure that things were so much better in the good old days. Nostalgia, Disney, and old timey TV shows have a way of making the past look a lot more wonderful than it really was. Just because you didn't hear about things as much in the past is likely more a product of geography or technology than of society.

It isn't like people didn't hurt one another over trivial matters in the past, such as the color of another's skin, their sex, age, size, class, wealth, or religion. There was a LOT of disrespecting of African Americans in many parts of the country, more so than even today, but especially in the South. Persecuted groups like JMB's Mormons ended up in Utah because of a lack of first amendment courtesy.

That two folks got into a fight that escalated into a homicide really isn't any sort of exceptional instance in our day and age or in the past.