One of the primary methods of fighting violence can be described as achieving a balance of violence potential—that is, the general armament of the population, where every person is able to quickly and effectively eliminate a violent offender during a direct attack. However, some people may doubt the possibility of implementing such a scenario due to economic inequality in society or the simple unwillingness of some people to own weapons. But there is one interesting method through which the number of violent offenders in society can be significantly reduced, even with the help of a small group of armed activists. It will create the exact same natural selection pressure to strengthen the violence-inhibiting Lorenz mechanism in the population as in the case of general armament, but will require far fewer resources to implement.
Of course, I am not proposing preemptive violence, because for its implementation, our activists themselves would have to be violent offenders capable of initiating violence against other people. To rely on a group of armed violent offenders for one’s own security, even if they currently claim to be on your side, would be great foolishness. Activists must be people capable only of self-defense. Furthermore, it should be understood that we cannot know for certain whether a specific person is prone to violence until they find themselves in circumstances that provoke its initiation. Only if they were unable to restrain themselves and exhibited violence can it be said that they are prone to it. In this regard, preemptive violence would ultimately lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, which we absolutely cannot allow.
What I am proposing is specifically a method of “provoking” violent offenders to reveal their violent nature. To make it clear what I am talking about, I will refer to one example of the practical implementation of this strategy. We are talking about the eradication of banditry in post-war Odessa, or the so-called “Masquerade” operation, organized by Marshal Zhukov himself. Of course, this operation was carried out by government decree, but in this case, that is not so important, since it still consists of using only self-defense, and therefore can be adopted by those fighting against aggressive violence. When well-dressed men, sometimes accompanied by equally fashionable ladies, began to appear on the streets of Odessa under the cover of night and in dark alleys, bandits simply could not restrain themselves from attacking. However, the victims of the attacks were actually disguised and armed officers of the Soviet militia, and upon being attacked, they shot to kill.
I think you already understand the essence of this strategy. Armed activists simply need to provoke people prone to violence into attacking. And I am not even talking about some kind of intrusive provocations (although a normal person would not respond to those with violence either); provocations on the level of the aforementioned walks through dark alleys are sufficient, and many, many variations of these can be devised. For example, walking through a predominantly conservative neighborhood in LGBT attire. When some bandit or violent offender decides to carry out an attack, all that needs to be done is to defend oneself using weapons—an absolutely normal action in the case of any violent attack.
Some may dislike such an approach for its cruelty, but it is unlikely that anything can be found in it that would make it not worth applying. It does not propose the initiation of aggressive violence, only self-defense against violent attacks, which is an absolutely normal and justified action. It cannot lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, because such people simply will not attack the activists under cover; this will be done exclusively by bandits and violent offenders. And there is nothing wrong with provocations of this kind. In the scenario we have already examined, we would not justify the violent offender and blame the victim of the attack if the event took place not in broad daylight in a crowded place, but somewhere at night in a dark alley, would we? Every person has the right to walk where they want and in whatever they want; the problem lies exclusively with the violent offender who is unable to follow the simple rule “one can offend, but one cannot be offended”! If someone is unable to restrain their violence and attacks people, then they fully deserve a response in the form of armed self-defense.
