# Does the state have a monopoly on violence? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175 "2025-10-21T21:11:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/61 "2025-10-24T08:35:47Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Assuming that’s the case, then how does eliminating civilian possession of guns change the equation? It makes suicide less likely, makes right wing mobs less lethal, and gives the government less excuse to kill people. And a minority arming themselves just makes them a target to be smashed. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/62 "2025-10-24T23:06:53Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > makes right wing mobs less lethal, How do you figure that? A mob armed with machetes is pretty damn lethal already to anyone who’s outnumbered and unarmed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/63 "2025-10-27T12:42:15Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > How do you figure that? A mob armed with machetes is pretty damn lethal already to anyone who’s outnumbered and unarmed. But a much smaller mob with guns is much more lethal. Guns are used for a reason; if they weren’t more effective than machetes, people wouldn’t bother with guns. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/64 "2025-10-27T19:17:37Z")
By the same token, wouldn’t a smaller number of potential victims be able to defend themselves better if they had guns? I’m still getting the impression that the unspoken presumption of the scenario is that the attackers have guns and the defenders do not. If anything, escalating the lethality of the weapons in play if used by both sides favors the besieged minority. One of me vs. six other people is hopeless for me if we’re all unarmed; bad but not hopeless if we all have knives; better for me still if we all have pistols; and substantially better for me if we all have full-auto assault rifles. At worst I can only die once, while having a chance at inflicting disproportionate retaliation. It’s why frakkin’ _North Korea_ can face down the USA, the most powerful military on the planet: because N.K. has a handful of nukes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/65 "2025-10-28T00:00:26Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > By the same token, wouldn’t a smaller number of potential victims be able to defend themselves better if they had guns? No. Guns are terrible for defense, and mainly serve as a justification for killing the minority that has them. Even if the cops have to plant one on them. The lethality of guns means that the winner of a fight tends to be whomever fires _first,_ meaning the aggressor. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/66 "2025-10-28T00:54:52Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Guns are terrible for defense Well, a lot of people would disagree with that. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/67 "2025-10-28T02:55:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Well, a lot of people would disagree with that. Dead people, if they actually try it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/68 "2025-10-28T03:36:55Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > By the same token, wouldn’t a smaller number of potential victims be able to defend themselves better if they had guns? I’m still getting the impression that the unspoken presumption of the scenario is that the attackers have guns and the defenders do not. If anything, escalating the lethality of the weapons in play if used by both sides favors the besieged minority. I don’t think this principle works at the level of individuals. The lethality of guns means the advantage generally goes to the person who uses his gun first. And criminals are more willing to initiate violence than law-abiding citizens are. I’ve heard the pro-gun argument that if everyone carried a gun there would be no crime. I don’t see this as being true. If everyone carried a gun, a mugger would just choose his target, shoot them in the back, and then steal the valuables off their dead body. What’s the defense against this? Pre-emptively shoot everyone who might be a mugger? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/69 "2025-10-28T03:48:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve heard the pro-gun argument that if everyone carried a gun there would be no crime. I don’t see this as being true. If everyone carried a gun, a mugger would just choose his target, shoot them in the back, and then steal the valuables off their dead body. What’s the defense against this? Supposedly the argument is that the mugger would be immediately shot by all of the other armed bystanders present, rather like a mutually assured destruction (MAD) situation on an individual level. But while I might have bought into this when I was younger, it seems pretty unworkable to me now. For one thing, I think if this were indeed the case, it would quickly result into people joining groups (aka gangs) for protection, and society would degenerate into gang warfare. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/70 "2025-10-28T03:55:16Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Supposedly the argument is that the mugger would be immediately shot by all of the other armed bystanders present, rather like a mutually assured destruction (MAD) situation on an individual level. > > But while I might have bought into this when I was younger, it seems pretty unworkable to me now. Unworkable indeed because even a subpar mugger isn’t going to pull his gun out and shoot somebody when there are other people around. He’ll wait until he sees a potential victim who’s alone. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/71 "2025-10-28T04:34:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Unworkable indeed because even a subpar mugger isn’t going to pull his gun out and shoot somebody when there are other people around. He’ll wait until he sees a potential victim who’s alone. Yeah. I mean, we see that _right now;_ muggers don’t walk up and rob people who are standing on the sidewalk in view of everyone. They’re criminals, not idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/72 "2025-10-28T04:46:45Z")
I’ll admit most of my direct experience was with people who failed at crime. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/73 "2025-10-28T09:48:48Z")
Which raises a couple of interesting questions. - How many crimes did Joe Inmate succeed at before the one(s) that landed him in your care? - Of all the folks in Joe’s old zipcode who did similar sorts of crimin’, how many end up in prison? Said another way, how does the 80/20 rule cut here? Are we catching the 20% who do 80% of the crime, or the 80% doing 20% of the crime? Or the 2% of the folks doing 2% of the crime especially ineptly / unluckily, leaving the other 98% untouched? My gut is we catch and convict a very small percentage of perps over a very small percentage of reported criminal events, which in turn is a very small percentage of all criminal events. I also strongly suspect the reporting rate greatly varies by severity, with malicious mischief like random vandalism or graffiti reported at a very low rate, while major crimes like homicide are reported at a very high rate. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/74 "2025-10-28T12:30:19Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > By the same token, wouldn’t a smaller number of potential victims be able to defend themselves better if they had guns? Though that’s irrelevant to the OP, in terms of the state’s ‘monopoly’ on violence in the US. How effective an armed populace is at protecting itself is irrelevant. In practice the fact the populace is armed means the state has a far more effective monopoly on violence, in America. Your average American small town cop has the kind of military equipment and armaments that would only be available to a handful of big city anti-terrorist officers in any other country. The main reason for that because your average American small town cop investigating a minor crime, has the same, or more, chance of a running into a heavily armed suspect as an anti-terrorism officer investigating a major terrorist incident in any other Western country ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/75 "2025-10-28T17:36:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If everyone carried a gun, a mugger would just choose his target, shoot them in the back, and then steal the valuables off their dead body. I think you’re trivializing the escalation from assault and robbery to murder and robbery. Society wouldn’t stand for it; for those who got caught and tried we’d go back to taking the convicted after the trial out to the gallows behind the courthouse and stringing them up right then and there. That’s if they survived discovery and didn’t get lynched immediately frontier-style justice. I’m astonished at the general tone of helplessness revealed in this thread. The presumption that the cruel and the violent would always prevail, and that those who seek to live in peace can never be anything but cowering victims. And as a corollary, that the only solution is to have an all-powerful government be the _uber_-cruel and violent superbully keeping the lesser riffraff in line. Government as Mafia. Do you really see yourselves as that weak and passive? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/76 "2025-10-28T17:55:28Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I think you’re trivializing the escalation from assault and robbery to murder and robbery. Society wouldn’t stand for it; for those who got caught and tried we’d go back to taking the convicted after the trial out to the gallows behind the courthouse and stringing them up right then and there. That’s if they survived discovery and didn’t get lynched immediately frontier-style justice. > > I’m astonished at the general tone of helplessness revealed in this thread. The presumption that the cruel and the violent would always prevail, and that those who seek to live in peace can never be anything but cowering victims. And as a corollary, that the only solution is to have an all-powerful government be the _uber_-cruel and violent superbully keeping the lesser riffraff in line. Government as Mafia. Do you really see yourselves as that weak and passive? So what you’re saying now is that crime can be controlled by society and the courts. (Although I don’t see why you seem to feel lynching is a necessary part of the system.) If that’s case then why are guns needed? If society can stop crime then individuals don’t need to. I also feel you’ve reversed the weak and helpless argument. People who feel that society generally works and will defend them aren’t the ones who feel weak and helpless. The people who feel they need to carry a gun to protect themselves are the ones who feel they can’t depend on society and would be weak and helpless without their own personal defense. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/77 "2025-10-28T17:59:58Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > The main reason for that because your average American small town cop investigating a minor crime, has the same, or more, chance of a running into a heavily armed suspect as an anti-terrorism officer investigating a major terrorist incident in any other Western country I think this is only part of the reason. I feel a bigger reason for the militarization of our police is because corporations that make military weapons push for new markets and have the money to influence legislatures. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/78 "2025-10-28T18:12:16Z")
What I’m saying is that the proposition that we must remain unarmed so that we won’t _provoke_ predators is the most shameful, cowardly _ **cringing** _ sentiment I’ve ever read on this board. It’s contemptable. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/79 "2025-10-28T18:24:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > police is because corporations that make military weapons push for new markets and have the money to influence legislatures Though other countries like Britain and France have equally large defense industries (larger compared to the size of the domestic defense budget) and don’t do that. There are few high profile anti-terrorism cops that get that treatment but your average small town bobby does not have an armored vehicle and assault rifles on hand, in case the burglar they are about to collar turns out to have a stockpile of arms big enough to supply a small army. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/80 "2025-10-28T18:24:05Z")
People having money is what provokes criminals to commit robberies. People having guns is what makes crime more lethal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175.md?page=5)