Lately, there has been a buzz of stories attempting to discredit one form of government philosophy over another as being more dangerous. Some organizations are pointing to the horrors of Communism. Others are claiming that the greatest threat to humanity is Fascism. The conclusion we're meant to draw is that if we only avoid a particular type of totalitarian government, then things will be fine. Unfortunately, even if we do avoid the worst totalitarian regimes — those that existed under famous despots like Hitler and Stalin — we still find that states have a particular penchant for killing immense numbers of innocent people.
Let us take, for example, the United States. The latest fear gripping the US is the danger presented by a recent string of large scale shootings. These incidents are viewed as existential threats to the safety and security of those living in the US. Further, between 1960 and 2016, 105,915 people found themselves a victim of a homicide. This seems like a tremendous number. However, when compared against the number of civilians killed between 2002 and 2006 in Iraq as a result of US operations, which are estimated at around 655,000, we begin to see a stark contrast between the ability of private citizens to inflict large scale death when compared with a State apparatus. In four short years, the government of the United States did what street gangs and church shooters would take an estimated 350 years to do to the population of Iraq alone. When we pile on Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (not to mention all the other small bush wars the US gets involved in all over the globe), 21st century America already exceeds private homicide totals for major regions over the course of multiple centuries.
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