Armed populations are harder to exterminate

Link:

"In other words, in the face of evidence that an armed populace prevents genocide, the human rights community has largely gotten behind a campaign to ensure that there will be no armed populaces anywhere in the world...
Given that the traditional approaches of conventions and tribunals have failed miserably, the human rights community should be prepared to endorse a new international human right: the right of law-abiding citizens to be armed." (via Instapundit)

I think about this in terms of power decentralization: decentralized power structures (like the US system of checks and balances and federalism) by their very nature are more robust, more flexible, and more fault-tolerant than centralized systems.