It's our weapon of choice for other, more reasonable things.
There's an oft misatributed quote to Orwell that goes:
"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us."
It may be misattributed, but the sentiment isn't.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations-Actual source: Quote Investigator found the earliest known appearance in a 1993 Washington Times essay by Richard Grenier: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The absence of quotation marks indicates that Grenier was using his own words to convey his interpretation of Orwell's opinion, as seen in citations below.
-Orwell wrote that pacifists cannot accept the statement "Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.", despite it being "grossly obvious."
-In an essay on Rudyard Kipling, Orwell cited Kipling's phrase "making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep" (Kipling, Tommy), and further noted that Kipling's "grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can be highly civilized only while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."
Private property is the foundation of "civilization", such as it is. It has always been guaranteed, ultimately, by the threat of violence. Whatever high minded social contracts we've superimposed over this base fact aren't weightless by any means, but they only overlay this blunt and brutal truth, the silk glove covering the iron fist.
