Chris Hedges: America's Addiction to Violence—From War to Vigilante Mobs—Is A Conservative Legacy

This may help to explain why so little of it has been used against state authority.

The following is an excerpt from Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt by Chris Hedges, (Nation Books, 2015):

My father and most of my uncles fought in World War II. One uncle was severely maimed, physically and psychologically, in the South Pacific and drank himself to death. I was in Central America in the 1980s during the proxy wars waged by Washington. I accompanied a Marine Corps battalion as it battled Iraqi troops into Kuwait during the first Gulf War. My family history intersects with the persistent patterns of violence that are a constant in American life, both at home and abroad. Any rebellion must contend with this endemic American violence, especially vigilante violence, as well as the sickness of the gun culture that is its natural expression. As it has done throughout American history, the state, under siege, will turn to extrajudicial groups of armed thugs to repress populist movements. Radical change in America is paid for with blood.

There are some 310 million firearms in the United States, including 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles, and 86 million shotguns. There is no reliable data on the number of military-style assault weapons in private hands, but the working estimate is about 1.5 million. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world—an average of 89 per 100 people, according to the 2007 Small Arms Survey. By comparison, Canada has 31 per 100 people. Canada usually sees under 200 gun-related homicides a year. Our addiction to violence and bloodletting—which will continue to grow—marks a nation in terminal decline.