> Local warlords rule because they are armed in particular. If they didn't have an advantage over the general populace, they wouldn't be ruling it. This claim

> Local warlords rule because they are armed in particular. If they didn't have an advantage over the general populace, they wouldn't be ruling it. This claim does not seem well supported by evidence. We can look at otherwise largely comparable places where either small arms are largely limited to police/military or where small arms are broadly distributed, and violence is generally much higher in the latter. Giving everybody in an economically precarious place a gun increases violence, strengthens the influence and size of local gangs, amplifies ethnic tensions, etc. Much of the violence in developing countries is worsened by US and European arms producers/merchants distributing weapons. In the past it was deliberate US policy to distribute weapons broadly in particular countries with the goal of destabilizing them via widespread violence. There is plenty of evidence that all else equal, gun control leads to reduced violence. See e.g. https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/38/1/140/2754868 https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/38/1/140/2754868 Unfortunately in the USA a powerful arms industry resists efforts to systematically study the effects of gun policy, much less implement effective gun control, using comparable techniques to the tobacco industry of a few decades ago. The result is uniquely and shockingly high levels of gun violence compared to the rest of the industrialized world. * * * > There were periods of time in the US when there were tons of hyper partisan local newspapers Yes and the propaganda was highly effective politically, leading to terrible policy outcomes.