During the Bronze Age, bronze weapons and armor were rarer. It cost more to mine and work bronze, and it cost more to buy a panoply. Therefore the distributio

During the Bronze Age, bronze weapons and armor were rarer. It cost more to mine and work bronze, and it cost more to buy a panoply. Therefore the distribution of those possessing the top-of-the-line violence capacity was concentrated in a narrow martial elite. The Iron Age broadened the number of people who could afford a panoply, because iron was easier to mine and cheaper to work (once they figured out how). The distribution of those with the ability to use force was a substantially broader elite, less concentrated than during the Bronze Age. When the ability to wield lethal violence becomes cheaper and available to a wider number of people, it's being "democratized." Samuel Colt's 1873 Single Action Army revolver is a more recent example of the democratization of violence capacity—“God made Men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal.” A similar argument can be made about the widespread availability of the cheap AK-47 following WWII.