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Group violence is an evil distinguishable from personal violence, involving purely one-to-one violence. My preference is to use the term “militarism” to embrace all types of group violence, including the use of weapons capable of injuring a plurality of individuals within a minute. Thus bazookas, machine guns, and even automatic pistols, are military weapons, not personal weapons.

The right for self-defense to personal violence is widely accepted. To the extent that “precedent” has been relevant, the “plausible perspectives” about the imminence of the hazards of threats on survival are the criteria for justifying retaliatory self-defense violence. Fortunately, many disputes are dealt with more nearly on a case-by-case basis in which precedent is nearly irrelevant. Very proficient lawyers for man slaughterers have sometimes persuaded juries about self-defense primarily because of the lack of proficiency of the prosecuting attorney, and vice-versa. In litigation the relative skill of the lawyers is likely to be more significant than either the law or the facts.

Among the many secular messages of Quakerism is a rejection of the concept of “civilized warfare” based upon the rejection that “group violence” might be “civilized.” Many treaties have banned particular weapons, or required appropriate ceremonies for the protection of diplomats, etc. upon the formal “declaration of war”. The treaty system can be best understood by seeking imagine how hellish some problems might be if gangs of bullies were entitled to seek victory over the enemy provided that written notice of plans for attack were submitted at least two seconds prior to the attack. The significant evil consists in the status of victor and vanquished, and the problems inherent in being the defeated party. Group violence among gangs of your bullies seems to be a perennial problem. The Quaker message seems to be concerned with avoiding the status of victor and vanquished, not in the conventional efforts of peaceniks to focus on what are purportedly “attainable” reforms within the treaty system.
 
Mutually Assured Deterrence has been criticized by some peaceniks, notwithstanding the fact that many analysts deem it to have been an important factor in “minimizing” military hostilities. All concepts of “balance of power” are essentially examples of such “mutually assured deterrence.”

The availability of a gun might affect the “probability” of the murder of a family member, but is not a significant “cause” of the murder. As long as “mutually assured deterrence” is functioning, whether the weapons are daggers, spears, or nuclear bombs is far less significant than whether any of the conflicting armies imagines the detection of a “military vacuum”.  A war is generally launched because of some expert’s opinion that a “quick and easy victory is attainable”. History includes hundreds of quickly won wars. Any prolonged war evidences the blunders in starting the war.

Socialism is a term connoting the “operation” of a project that at some time, somewhere has been conducted by private enterprise.  In certain areas in certain periods, establishing accounts permitting transfer of funds was a service on which some government insists upon a government monopoly. All credit card systems exemplify privatized monetarism that flourish in competition with any monetary services offered by various governance entities or governments. When the US sought to manipulate the external clout of the USSR, it did so, not primarily by military invasions, but instead by attack upon the ruble and the monetary system of the USSR.  Many analysts have expected the enemies of the USA to use, not a military invasion, but instead an attacks upon the value of the dollar. If military hostilities are to be minimized, then “de-fanging” all nations by requiring all members of the federation to abandon all national armies and all national monetary systems. There could be two networks of fairly competing tiny non-governmental entities providing both the monetary services and the military services needed by nations and all other levels of government. Each tiny army could have appropriate Rebellion Deterrence Corps could have contracts with all levels of government of all spectrum of ideology and all sizes and levels.  Any government failing to purchase adequate  deterrence by contract would be required to pay the high premium for “emergency services” if  supplemental protection were needed for suppressing a rebellion  Global policy would be that EVERY rebellion be promptly defeated. The fair competition among the adequate number of Rebellion Deterrence Corps would necessitate fair competition among the suppliers of software and hardware to the competing Rebellion Deterrence Corps. Hence, prolongation of a global military industrial complex seems to be among the highly desirable desiderata for long term minimizing of military hostilities. Unfortunately, some peaceniks have attacked guns and the existence of military suppliers instead of appreciating their critical necessity for prolonged minimization of military hostilities. As soon as there had been many centuries of consistent squashing of every rebellion, there might be hope for eventually appropriate downsizing the system of rebellion deterrence corps, etc. Even with downsizing, the ongoing usefulness of the truly effective “defensive militarism” needs to be recognized.
 
The forces need to be on “doing away with the occasion” for group violence, militarism, and/or warfare.  Although the right of “self-defense” needs to be acknowledged, this should not be fraudulent transformed into merely damning aggression. Parents of toddlers who focus attention, not upon “doing way with the occasion for personal violence” and the fundament evil of unnecessary personal violence, but blunder by primarily criticizing “aggression” tend to train their children to be deceptive about aggression. Siblings can be skillful in “covering up” their manipulation of another to arouse and intensify the anger of another. Personal violence can be expected when anger levels exceed appropriate threshold levels. In all conflicts among entities, the “subtle aggressor” manipulates the antagonist’s anger above the threshold for trying to cover up the true aggressor.

Human relations can desirably be significantly gentle, with violence as a troublesome aberration. Except within utopian societies, the problems concern “minimizing” instead of completely “banning” or “abolishing violence.  Each human tends to have some capacity for anger. Violent behavior is a probable result when the intensity of anger exceeds the self-control capacity for such individual under particular circumstances. Alcohol and other drugs affect responses to experiencing anger. Instead of trying to completely abolish all violence, it is better to seek to do away with the occasions tending to stimulate violence. This is among the many “secular messages” of Quakerism that have had and are likely to continue to have impact upon total society.