Disarm Police – Part I

Continuing this previous post: I will explain why if police do their job properly they should never have to fire a gun at anyone or anything.

American cops need guns because Americans have so many guns. Or so goes one of the arguments for equipping virtually all law enforcement officers in the United States with handguns. Is it reasonable and necessary to add handguns to the hip arsenal of a “peace” officer that already includes lights, handcuffs, pepper spray, taser, automatic knife, and a baton? (Note that the latter two are already classified as lethal weapons and often illegal for private citizens to possess.)

_{Typical American police duty belt, offering immediate access to radio, flashlight, handcuffs, pepper spray, baton, taser, and handgun.}

If you think cops need guns you might imagine that every police officer in America has to be ready at a moment’s notice to face down a rampaging gunman. The reality is that most mass shootings are over before police intervene; more shooters are stopped by either suicide or (often unarmed) bystanders than by police.

Perhaps you have absorbed the Hollywood “hot-pursuit” trope in which cops corner a suspect who turns a gun on them, leaving the police with no choice but to kill or be killed. In reality: Policing need not and should not be conducted via Western-style quick-draw showdown.

_{^{In the old days you couldn’t radio for backup. But you could still take cover.}}

Police are not superheroes or world-class athletes. Cops do not battle with criminals on a level field – in terms of numbers, weapons, or tactics. The most powerful police tool is not a weapon, but a radio. Facing a dangerous situation a single cop can summon a battalion of law enforcement personnel and virtually unlimited resources. Police can create a safe perimeter around anyone they consider a danger. No matter how armed or dangerous the suspect, none of the police need to carry firearms: They can wait behind their cars and bulletproof shields, in shifts if necessary, to outlast anyone who defies their orders.

^{Police response to a single unarmed drunk man resisting arrest.}

Nor should police use lethal force to try to stop fleeing suspects. Police can afford to track a suspect indefinitely and wait until they have the advantage to effect a minimal-risk arrest. Police can marshal not only the vast resources of the government, but even the assistance of the general public. Cases in which a dangerous fugitive evades capture for any amount of time are so rare that they make national news.

The number of firearms in the United States does not correlate to the risks that police face. For one thing: Criminals in countries with few firearms still acquire and use guns. Police in all countries are prepared to handle armed suspects, regardless of how many or few guns are in circulation. But private gun ownership is a red herring: Police everywhere have to confront suspects armed with other common lethal weapons, including vehicles and knives. Even American police recognize that a person closer than seven yards carrying an edged weapon poses as grave a threat as a person brandishing a firearm.¹

Police in other countries are able to keep the peace without routinely shooting citizens, and in fact often without carrying firearms at all. There’s no mystery in this: good cops everywhere follow their training to contain and deescalate. But in America police have also been given military tools and tactics: not just firearms, but also broad discretion and vast immunity from liability in the use of lethal force – something more appropriate to a war zone. And, not surprisingly, American policing has attracted and bred cops with a propensity for using violence instead of less lethal tools and tactics.

_{¹This knowledge became mainstream in the 1980s when “How close is too close” and Surviving Edged Weapons became standard police training.}