The Mind and Thoughts of a Normal Guy

How much violence is to much?

As I type this entry, I am also thinking on how to proceed with my second novel. I personally hate violence and would never intentionally hurt anyone if it was not necessary, but the novels I write are intended to keep a reader interested and intrigued with action, suspense, wondering what will happen next and the plot calls for a realistic amount of hostility and violence without exceeding the rating for my target audience. It has to be balanced - the bad guys need to be evil and ruthless enough to be believable. Likewise with the heroes, who can't just slap a villain on the wrist or go the other extreme by blowing or slicing heads off.
The problem is that entertainment itself has become unbalanced. I'm not squeamish with blood and guts no matter how realistic the effects may seem but it seems that an increasing number of action movies aren't considered entertaining unless there is (X) amount of blood or some kind of graphic torture on-screen. What happened to the days where the viewer had to use their own imagination about how something actually happened. The same applies for books - us writers have an obligation to be reasonably descriptive, but do we really need to fill their minds with so many gory details?
One thing every writer should do is to balance anything they write about with their comfort level and their creativity with what they believe their target audience would find appropriate. Personally, in the case of violence, I will never exceed what I believe to be appropriate, and on top of that, I will not sacrifice what I believe to be good storytelling for an unnecessary bloodbath.