Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumLibertarians Who Oppose a Militarized Police Should Support Gun Control—But They Don't, of Course
Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 08:28 AM - Edit history (1)
When I tweeted out this stunning stat earlier this week, no shortage of people noted an obvious explanation for why British police were so much less likely to fire their guns: there were far fewer guns around them. The U.K. has some of the world’s strictest limitations on gun ownership—handguns are all but prohibited, while shotguns and rifles require a police certificate and special justification (self-defense does not qualify.) There are an estimated 14,000 handguns in civilian hands in the U.K. (population 63 million) and slightly more than 2 million shotguns and rifles. Estimates for the number of total firearms in civilian hands in the U.S. float north of 300 million. Simply put, if the police in the U.S. seem a lot more on edge than those across the pond, they have good reason to be.
As obvious as this explanation for the militarization and trigger-happiness of U.S. police may be, it has gotten relatively little attention amid the alarming spectacle that has played out in Ferguson, Missouri following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old and, more recently, the fatal shooting just a few miles away of a mentally-ill man holding a knife. That oversight may be partly because this aspect of the debate undermines one of the most popular media narratives to emerge from Ferguson: the notion of a growing right-left coalition united against heavy-handed police tactics.
There is indeed agreement between many liberals and libertarians that the militarization of the police, especially in its dealings with racial minorities, has gone too far. But this consensus may crumble pretty quickly when it’s confronted with the obvious police counter-argument: that the authorities’ heavy firepower and armor is necessary in light of all the firepower they’re up against. At that point, many liberals will revert to arguing for sensible gun control regulations like broader background checks to keep guns out of the hands of violent felons and the mentally ill (the measure that police organizations successfully argued should be the gun control movement’s legislative priority following the Newtown, Connecticut shootings) or limits on assault weapons and oversized ammunition clips. And liberals will be reminded that the libertarians who agree with them in opposing police militarization are very much also opposed to the gun regulations that might help make the environment faced by police slightly less threatening.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119170/libertarians-oppose-militarized-police-not-gun-control-make-sense
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
hack89
(39,171 posts)Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 10:36 AM - Edit history (1)
I blame the militarization of police on the war on drugs. Once the police decided they were fighting a "war" they saw themselves as soldiers in that war.
Because the counter argument is that with violent crime of all kinds on a 20 year decline and at historic lows, any threat to the police that requires heavy weaponry is purely hypothetical and not actually real. It has never been safer to be a cop.
clffrdjk
(905 posts)"There is indeed agreement between many liberals and libertarians that the militarization of the police, especially in its dealings with /UNARMED/ racial minorities, has gone too far. But this consensus may crumble pretty quickly when it’s confronted with the obvious police counter-argument: that the authorities’ heavy firepower and armor is necessary in light of all the firepower they’re up against."
So basically the argument is many liberals have ADD so everyone needs to give up their civil rights in order to remove the shiny objects that distract many liberals from the real problem.
benEzra
(12,148 posts)we should give LE an absolute monopoly on force?
NYC has the gun laws you like, and yet the NYPD is among the most militarized and rights-violating departments in the nation. Remember stop-and-frisk? Warrantless surveillance of Muslims and infiltration of mosques? Sexually assaulting prisoners with broken broom handles? Shooting people down in the street for holding wallets, or for holding nothing at all? Using abusive language toward anyone who doesn't show the proper obeisance? Shooting up vehicles full of innocent people and then justifying it? Shooting so carelessly in a crowded street that they gun down bystanders and each other?
There's also that pesky little detail that African-Americans are already the most-disarmed demographic in the United States...yet they are the ones that are most often the target of excessive force (though not the only ones).
My local police department is everything you want a local PD to be...and they are comfortable with people with clean records having guns. They are also limited to the same weapons that civilians are (non-automatics, no armored vehicles, etc.) and wear civilian police uniforms rather than paramilitary BDUs.
Methinks you might want to revisit the foundations of modern civilian policing, instead of pushing a return to the feudal monopoly-of-force model.
To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Whenever the police become a different class than the citizenry, things degenerate into an occupying-force model. Police are civilians and should act as such.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)with you and your family. Thanks for the post, esp. the highlighted second portion.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)The only question is whether or not even the WOD was a pretext to hide other motivations, chief of which was to beef up LEOs so that they would become a better line of first defense when general disruption breaks out. IMO, the militarization will continue, WOD or no.
The New Republic has miss-characterized American libertarian thought: While the philosophy is flawed, there is nothing inconsistent with its opposition to both police militarization and civilian gun-control/prohibition.
I don't see the threat to police as being measurably greater now when compared with times passed. In terms of firearms, for a century, the major "escalation" was in the power and actions of handguns. Now, we have this big boost in rifles, vehicles, and most concerning, tactics.
