It shouldn't be, and that's why I'm being a bit careful with my language. To normalize that it is in fact a bilateral issue. How to solve it and what to do about, sure, those are left and right opinions. But the fact that it is an issue needs to be normalized, because it is indeed a fact.

Honestly this seems like a bonkers denial of reality: the State is exactly the embodiment of the use and monopoly of violence. Pretending otherwise is ignoring hundreds of years of empirical data.

We aren't denying or even objecting to the state's monopoly on violence. The problem is the word "punitive" there. State violence should be a means to stop other violence. It shouldn't be used as a punishment by itself (beyond more indirect forms of violence such as denying someone's freedom by putting them in prison).

I wish the state wouldn’t use government agencies putatively, such as the IRS, but they have, and will probably increase.