Responding to animal rights advocates who used her work in making their arguements, Jane Goodall says "no" in an essay in the Wall Street Journal
What is amazing is how peaceful we are. Goodall (and the people she writes with as it's signed by three people) say that chimps similar to humans when meeting up with an individual from a separate neighboring band will kill the single individual if there are no societal repercussions from doing so.
"There but for the grace of fortune, circumstance and effective social institutions go you and I"
Speaking of chimps Ms Goodall says they murder at a rate of around 270 per 100,000. To put it in perspective she says that would be one individual of a group of 50 murdered once every seven years.
Similar to humans the killings are done by males and all males participate. The common denominator is a territorial species which is sometimes carnivorous, and travels in different sized groups. This allows superior sized groups to encounter lone individuals where killing the individual would lead to increased territory and very little risk. These behaviors are not precipitated by mental instability.
A species with similar territorial imperatives that Ms Goodall mentions is the wolf where losses are at 40% from other wolves. Imagine living in a world where 4 out of 10 people you know were murdered. A far cry from the puppy like portrait painted by animal rights advocates. No wonder wolves are shown as a fierce evil in literature.
Thankfully that's not how we live. We are amazingly peaceful where we have intact societies. Violence is a monopoly of the state, which hopefully seldom uses it's power. For being such a potentially violent animal we are mostly peaceful.
My street- Quiet and non threatening - kids ride bikes unsupervised - people walk around without being murdered
Update: Sorry, I should have linked the people and articles Ms Goodall was responding to.
Humanlike Violence Is Not Seen In Other Animals
Quitting the Hominid Fight Club