Why Do We Let Cops Carry Guns?
The town of Northampton, MA has always been a center of
racial, gender and cultural diversity; hence, it’s no surprise that the town
is, apolitically speaking, about as liberal as you can get. Their liberalism was on display this week
when the City Council criticized an offer from the local Wal Mart which wanted
to donate $13,000 in ammunition that could be used for training the town
police. This led to a nasty
exchange at a City Council meeting, which made Wal Mart’s withdraw
from the deal.
What caught my eye in the reportage was a statement
from a local attorney, Dana Goldblatt, who got up at the Council meeting during
the public comments period and made this remark: ”We should be able to say fewer police, fewer guns, less ammo,
and somehow we can’t.”
The entire episode got me thinking about gun violence
and the degree to which the discussion never seems to focus on whether the cops
should actually be walking around with guns. In fact, the United States is the
only advanced nation-state which grants its local police the same free access
to small arms that we grant to every adult who hasn’t committed some kind of
serious crime. In effect, we extend to our police the same Constitutional
protection for carrying guns that we give to everyone else, even though there’s
nothing in the 2nd Amendment about using a gun to enforce the law.
Several years ago, our friend Frank Zimring published a
really good book, When Police Kill,
which pointed out that not only is the annual body count from police shootings
at least double what we get from the official reports, but there doesn’t appear
to be any connection between the number of police shootings and controlling
crime or crime rates at all. What Zimring suggests, and the evidence certainly
sustains his argument in this respect, is that other countries which have a
similar rate of violent crime exercise tight control over when and how local
police can carry guns.
It’s all fine and well that Wal Mart wanted to give the
Northampton Police Department free ammunition that could be used for training
the cops how to use their guns, but many, if not most cops rarely, if ever
practice using their guns. Research on
this issue is spotty at best, but even a pro-cop, pro-gun blog like Bearing Arms had to admit
that, “the
overwhelming majority of police officers are not competent shooters.” And take it from me, that’s an understatement
if there ever was one.
I don’t think it would be such a
bad idea if Gun-control Nation would begin asking themselves why are the cops exempted
from concerns we all share about the risks of walking around with guns? To be
sure, the gun-control contingent has no problem aligning itself with the
various public-interest and community groups who decry police violence
practiced against members of the ‘less-than-fortunate’ class. But the usual
strategy here is to demand more sensitivity training and more time spent on the
proper use of lethal force.
How about considering the idea that cops simply
shouldn’t be walking around with guns?
This is exactly the point made by Attorney Goldblatt at the Northampton
City Council meeting, but I don’t hear it being said anywhere else.
I have been arguing, largely against a brick wall, that
until and unless we get rid of handguns, particularly the handguns which
account for more than 80% of all gun
violence, so-called ‘reasonable’ restrictions won’t do much at all. And while
gun researchers continue to pretend they can preserve the 2nd
Amendment by using synthetic controls regression analysis to come up with a
‘scientific’ proof of how some new gun law will reduce shootings, there’s about
as much science in that nonsense as the science that Pope Urban VIII used to
lock up Galileo in 1633.
Want to end gun violence? It’s simple. Take away what causes the
problem, and the problem is caused by guns.
Gee, that was tough one.
