One would be tempted, what with the rising costs of police protection and incarceration of criminals, to yearn for a return to legalized dueling as a means of eliminating at least some of the criminal element. The problem with this solution is that most killers are cowards; note the popularity of drive-by shootings. If one really wants to see someone else dead it would still be more sensible to attack them when their guard was down or hire someone else to do them in.
Legalized dueling might work as a substitute for law suits thus reducing the load on the legal system and cutting down the supply of lawyers. If instead of suing someone a duel took place then the amount of nuisance law suits would drop immediately. However in dueling, like going to court, the advantage would be go to the rich and powerful because they would almost certainly hire people to do their dueling for them. Unless a law was passed that said one had to do one’s own dueling or have one’s lawyer do it for you (which would be a good way of getting rid of a lot of lawyers). Eventually though dueling would be taught in law school and the rich would still hire the best.
I do see how dueling could be useful in prison. People who are serving life sentences could be given an option to be incarcerated in a special prison were they would be matched with other prisoners and duel to the death. A convict could only gain release after surviving x amount of duels and would not be able to turn down a duel. This would save the government money by cutting down on the size of the prison population and could additionally bring in much needed revenue by making the duels into a reality TV show. I think we would also have to add the stipulation that after being released if the ex-con is sent back to prison he or she would automatically be sent back to the same prison and would have to win twice as many duels to be released again.
Another interesting idea would be to make members of Congress who are caught lying duel a volunteer citizen who would be paid the congressperson’s yearly salary if they won. Not only would we gain more honest politicians but the duel could be shown on pay per view with maybe a half an hour of background on each of the duelists. The duel could take place in the Capital Building in front of both houses of Congress. Now that would be entertainment!