“Richard Hill, history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, explains that New Zealand police were disarmed for routine work in 1886, following the principle of the British police that: “Constables are placed in authority to protect, not to oppress, the public.” For officers to carry guns would not just be unnecessary, he says, “but also antithetical to the values of civil society.””

The above passage comes from a recent article in Quartz titled, How do police handle violence in countries where officers don’t carry guns?. It’s a good article, and it got me thinking about counter-arguments clever libertarian-leaning anarchists often make in regard to gun control/regulation. I’m referring to the claim that disarming civilians would only leave them vulnerable to the armed, oppressive State. As someone who is sensitive to power hierarchies myself, it’s hard to dismiss this concern.

My response, as an anti-gun person, to this sort of pro-gun retort has been two-fold: 1) in my utopian society NO ONE gets guns; cops, civilians, military, politicians, no one, (i.e. I’m against killing people to solve problems. Period.) and 2) since we’re obviously not living in a utopia, and I do understand and am sensitive to power hierarchies, maybe the powerful should be the first ones to give up their guns and their power to erase human lives (this is definitely my personal conviction anyway).

What a gesture that would be, though, really! I mean, wow, think about that. What if our society collectively said, “you know what? We’ve had enough gun killings. We’ll disarm ourselves, but only after the police disarm themselves first.”* But if this doesn’t happen, if the police refuse to de-militarize and continue carrying weapons into battle, what are we to think? Citizens are expected to live peacefully, civilly going about about their daily business, trusting each other, living vulnerably without weapons, loving each other etc., but, as Professor John Debrinsky points out, “…the paramilitary forces, which we habitually call “the police” still, carry machine guns, drive military vehicles, and wear all the gear of warfare. And that’s what it means for us to imagine unity these days… [certainly] An odd sense of democracy.” Indeed, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that we can have “unity” if one side is unarmed, powerless, and vulnerable while the other side is STILL geared up for a war…

I really do feel convicted that justice requires the powerful to relinquish their power willingly and side with the oppressed. This, in my mind, is what Jesus (a personal hero of mine) demonstrated over and over, and it very well could be the only way to truly achieve any semblance of this “unity” that we claim to be seeking…

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*For the record, I’d actually be happy with a simultaneous disarmament.

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Paintings above by Jansson Stegner

Photo above by Jonathan Bachman

Tags:black lives mattergun controlgunsJusticemilitaryoppressionpoliceunity