The Stick (and the Rock) is Mightier than the Firearm (maybe tied with the Pen)

One big difference between Afghanistan and America involves sticks, rocks, guns and pens. In America if you are even seen with a firearm, people become, well, more aware of you. If you make a theatening move with one - people scatter and panic. Not the same case in Afghanistan. When our security at Humanitarian Assistance drops, the front gate of our base, or anywhere a group of Afghans (particularly the younger ones) would gather tried to be menacing looking with their rifles - the crowd yawned. If they reached for a rock or a stick, people became more aware of them and the kids would scatter at full speed.
As you can see above, the police officer (who was armed) has a thin switch and is getting results with it. I saw many a time where sticks and rocks were freely employed, while guns and knives sat idle. Low level violence freely used, while deadly force was quite rare.

I will leave it up to the sociology types to explain this more clearly. I am just making an observation.

On the more, er, positive side, I found that the humble ball point pen was a quite effective "carrot" compared to the, um, stick. No matter where I went I would ALWAYS hear the same two word phrase over and over... "pen bahksheesh!" (a request for the gift of a pen). Fortunately word had gotten back home about this phenomenon, so we had boxes of pens mailed to us. I guess the pen is mightier than the sword (and the firearm) but tied with the stick...