Libertarians Who Oppose a Militarized Police Should Support Gun Control—But They Don't, of Course

[SecularMotion]

Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 08:28 AM - Edit history (1)

The current issue of The Economist contains a striking factoid: “Last year, in total, British police officers actually fired their weapons three times. The number of people fatally shot was zero.”1 By contrast, there are about 400 fatal shootings each year by local police in the United States.

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

[hack89]

1. I question the logic that the police are heavily armed because the population is heavily armed

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.

[Lee-Lee]

2. Libertarians fancy themselves as "self police"

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. The police are killing unarmed civilians. nt

[conservaphobe]

4. Libertarians are outraged by the militarization of the police.

But they support a heavily militarized public and would not go against heavily militarized groups operating in the private sector. Some even want to privatize police.

That's the difference between us and them.

We care about our rights being easily trampled upon by law enforcement and they'd rather private citizens and corporations trample upon them than government.

[Kurska]

5. "If you give us all your guns, we'll stop killing people we know are unarmed"

BS