In America, we take it as a given that police officers must carry guns. It does not have to be this way.
Police in a number of countries do not carry guns. Often, only specially trained units carry firearms on their person, they are engaged only where is a known risk or report of firearms being used. Other officers may have firearms locked in vehicles, carrying only batons or tasers at all times.
Disarming the police could deliver several benefits in the US.
It would reduce cases where poorly trained deputies kill people because they reached for the wrong holster and grabbed a gun instead of a taser.
It would avoid egregious cases where billionaires like Robert Mercer buy a deputy’s badge so they can carry a gun around in cities and states that prohibit it.
Will it lead to some cops leaving the force because they don’t feel safe without a gun? Yes, almost certainly. But do we really need officers on the force who are so afraid of the communities they walk or drive through that they refuse to venture into them without a gun?
In a recent National Review article, conservative author David French argues that US police forces should vary their use of firearms based on threat levels:
Third, the prudent rules of engagement should vary by the nature of the encounter. As I wrote in my initial piece about the Clark shooting, situational awareness demands different kinds of risk tolerance. Pursuit of an armed robber is different from pursuit of a vandal, and both are dramatically different from rolling up on an actual firefight, like the incident that claimed the life of a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy in 2017. While each situation can potentially turn deadly, it’s a simple fact that some kinds of encounters are more fraught with peril than others, and greater inherent peril demands greater latitude for police use of force. — www.nationalreview.com/...
Some officers have a one-size-fits-all approach, unholstering their guns the moment they roll up to a job. The vast majority of officers do not do this, in fact only a quarter of police officers report ever having fired their service weapon while on the job. Female officers are one third as likely as male officers to have fired their weapon over their careers.
Some of the worst cases of police shootings have involved officers who clearly misread a situation and panicked. Here’s how French describes the defense presented by the police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile:
Got that? One of the reasons Janez was afraid was that he thought Castile had disregarded the life of a five-year-old by “giving her secondhand smoke.” So naturally, he then decided to fire his gun into a car containing that very same five-year-old. In reality, Janez panicked, and while that is understandable, it is not a justification for shooting Castile. — www.nationalreview.com/...
He panicked, pulled his weapon and fired. At trial, his lawyers coached him on some cockamamie story to sell to the jury about marijuana. And the jury bought it, because, well we all know.
We can run down the list of police shootings and find similar examples of panic. An officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma panicked and killed a man who was disoriented and walking around after his car stalled.
Taking away the guns removes the lethal consequences of police officers panicking. If they do panic, they can retreat and call for reinforcements, ideally from a colleague who isn’t in as panicked a state.
The obvious question is officer safety, and we’ll go back to French on this.
A person can be concerned about officer safety and realize the truth that officer safety isn’t the mission. A person can believe blue lives matter and understand that accepting sometimes extraordinary risk is part of the job. A person can support the police and still demand a very high level of tactical and strategic awareness even from the youngest officers. To put them on the street is to declare to the public that they are up to the job. — www.nationalreview.com/...
This is a key point worth remembering, officer safety is not the mission. The mission is public safety, and if armed police officers are actually undermining public safety, perhaps we need to consider disarming them. Perhaps if we had fewer officers with guns on their person at all times, situations like this would unfold a bit differently.
— @subirgrewal