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by rayiner 9 days ago
In the absence of firearms, the person who has the next most dangerous weapon can easily dominate everyone else. The country where I'm from was disarmed by the British to keep us from fighting them. But armed gangs still terrorize people with knives and machetes and whatnot.

Some fraction of the population in any society is antisocial. A non-zero rate of firearms ownership allows the people who aren't antisocial to suppress those who are antisocial and maintain peace.
2 comments
thrance 9 days ago
> A non-zero rate of firearms ownership allows the people who aren't antisocial to suppress those who are antisocial and maintain peace.

Do you have an example of such a place? What you're describing is called vigilantism, and usually creates more issues than it solves.

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soco 9 days ago
Is this theory working in the US? Do we see the social people with weapons suppressing the antisocial gangs with weapons? If you see proof for this, good. But I don't see it. Also, one downside of firearms is collateral victims.
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rayiner 9 days ago
The U.S. has lots of social people with guns: police, guards, military, etc. We have a system where we draw a line around certain social people with guns and call them “the government.” But governments didn’t spring out of thin air. They reflect a broader social principle that the optimal level of social piece involves a non-zero number of people capable of exercising violence.
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pandaman 9 days ago
>But I don't see it.

Do you really see armed gangs terrorizing citizens somewhere in the US then? You not seeing people in the process of suppressing gangs is fine, it just means the suppression is very effective. If suppression did not exist as you imply then you'd be seeing armed gangs collecting protection money from you every week.

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black6 9 days ago
No, because the state owns a monopoly on violence and cracks down hard on vigilantism.
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HaZeust 8 days ago
>"Is this theory working in the US?"

Yes. It's the country with the most gun ownership metrics from almost every dataset, and there's not nearly as much gun violence as you'd THINK despite that.

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