In the wake of any of the all too frequent mass shootings in our country, the debate over gun control wakes up. That is, it stirs the debate for approximately 48 hours before everyone gets apathetic over the power of the NRA and afraid of the people who bear arms to protect the right to bear arms (YouTube Dana Loesch NRA ad to see what I mean). However, the debate over gun control is essential to prevent future acts of terrorism. That being said, popular arguments from the left on gun control are missing one crucial point: those debating gun control must consider an increasingly militarized police force.

Banning semi-automatic rifles, such as the ones modified by the Las Vegas shooter to act like automatic rifles, is clear enough. Weapons of that caliber should not be needed for self-protection and should not be so easily available. However, a complete ban on all guns without disarming the police would create a frightening situation.

Over the past few years, police violence and brutality have become more pervasive in everyday life. The high profile cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and many others speak for themselves. It seems like almost everyday in the news, an innocent black person is attacked by the police for seemingly no reason at all. According to the Free Thought Project, in 2014 police have killed nearly twice as many Americans as have been killed in mass shootings from 1982-2014.

A police state is one in which the government controls economic, political and social life with an arbitrary exercise of power through the police. As our police forces become more and more militarized, our country moves closer to realizing a police state. All one needs to look at is the pictures of the officers in Ferguson, Missouri. Those officers were not there to keep the peace or keep people safe, they were there for war. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has shown that federal programs have outfitted police forces with firepower that is well beyond what is needed for neighborhood protection. In addition, when heavily armed police forces move in to conduct police work, it is far more likely that the situation will escalate into violence.

To understand the need to disarm the police and the population, it is necessary to understand the police as an institution of repression and force: not an institution of safety and freedom. Riot gear, assault weapons, and tanks do not provide safety for anyone; instead, they impose fear and incite violence. The entire point of the Second Amendment was to give Americans protection against tyranny and oppression. As the police become more and more powerful and take more lives, it becomes increasingly important to ensure a mechanism of protection for those who are targeted. It is no secret who has the bullseye on their back, as people of color are far more likely to be stopped, harassed, and killed by the police. As popular documentaries, such as Ava DuVernay’s “13^th” have shown, the dominant forces in America have always had processes for controlling people of color, particularly African Americans. Incarceration rates are startling enough, but more and more it seems that police are skipping incarceration and putting innocent lives into body bags right on the streets.

Weapons of war should not be available to citizens or the police. If we want to have a productive conversation about taking weapons off the streets, we must have a productive conversation about demilitarizing the police. After all, the police are supposed to ensure the safety and freedom of citizens, but as they have become a structure of war, they have compromised safety and freedom. To work towards a more egalitarian world free of repression, we need to get guns both off the streets and out of the hands of the police.