Oleg Look At this:
I have recommended this several times;
http://ls.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-4.html
From the introduction
"Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage. Though it is a long step
between being disarmed and being murdered--one does not usually lead to the other--but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed.
Nor should this be altogether surprising. An armed population is simply more difficult to exterminate than one that is defenseless. This is not to say that the plans of a government resolved to eradicate an ethnic or political minority would necessarily be precluded by armed
resistance. As elsewhere in life, raising the cost of a behavior, whether genocide, smoking cigarettes or anything in between, merely makes that behavior more unusual than it would otherwise be, not impossible for those willing and able to pay the price. No specific form of social
organization will ever make genocide or any other evil literally impossible. Nevertheless, because most important questions are matters of degree, it is still worth inquiring into the connection between the virulence of a government and the degree of its effective monopoly on deadly force."
Also see:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/
Noel
I have recommended this several times;
http://ls.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-4.html
From the introduction
"Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage. Though it is a long step
between being disarmed and being murdered--one does not usually lead to the other--but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed.
Nor should this be altogether surprising. An armed population is simply more difficult to exterminate than one that is defenseless. This is not to say that the plans of a government resolved to eradicate an ethnic or political minority would necessarily be precluded by armed
resistance. As elsewhere in life, raising the cost of a behavior, whether genocide, smoking cigarettes or anything in between, merely makes that behavior more unusual than it would otherwise be, not impossible for those willing and able to pay the price. No specific form of social
organization will ever make genocide or any other evil literally impossible. Nevertheless, because most important questions are matters of degree, it is still worth inquiring into the connection between the virulence of a government and the degree of its effective monopoly on deadly force."
Also see:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/
Noel