Democide: Understanding the State’s Monopoly on Violence and the Second Amendment

A desire to restrict the private ownership of firearms is predicated on the misapprehension that private citizens can’t be trusted with them and that the state should be granted a “monopoly on violence" for this reason.

However, states are significantly more violent than individuals. 262 Million people died at the hands of their own governments in the 20th century alone. The concept of democide was first formulated by Rudolph Rummel. Democide is broadly defined as the murder of any person or people by their government. Religion, ethnicity, politics, or some mixture of these is usually the motivation behind it. By defining it in terms of the act itself, all mass killings by one’s government are able to be compared with one another regardless of the motivations.

Western liberal democracies like the United States are somewhat detached from the danger that democide poses and discount it because their governments are relatively restrained in the use of force on their own citizens. If they should learn anything from the many examples of democide around the globe, it should be that they should be hesitant to give more power to the state or accept greater restrictions on gun ownership.

Read the full guide Democide: Understanding the State’s Monopoly on Violence and the Second Amendment at Ammo.com