It's not mutual fear but recognition of a fact of life: citizens who might be armed should not be messed with.
I've lived in places where anyone could be assumed to be armed, that all householders had firearms. I've lived in places where no one had firearms, except criminals.
The former had zero mutual fear, the latter had fear, but only on the side of the unarmed citizens.
Nothing says 'fear' like bars on the windows and bullet-proof glass in front of the counter at KFC, food served by turnstile.
My point was: if we already live with such conditions we may have lost the fight to live in a decent society. And a society which is not decent is not a society, it's only an amalgam of people.
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It's not mutual fear but recognition of a fact of life: citizens who might be armed should not be messed with.
I've lived in places where anyone could be assumed to be armed, that all householders had firearms. I've lived in places where no one had firearms, except criminals.
The former had zero mutual fear, the latter had fear, but only on the side of the unarmed citizens.
Nothing says 'fear' like bars on the windows and bullet-proof glass in front of the counter at KFC, food served by turnstile.
My point was: if we already live with such conditions we may have lost the fight to live in a decent society. And a society which is not decent is not a society, it's only an amalgam of people.