Unarmed police, now fully deserving of protection by gun-bearing citizens, would gain immense respect. They would rule by the force of law, meaning respect for the law, meaning widespread voluntary submission by the citizenry. This is properly called self-government under lawful authority. The policeman’s word would be law. He just wouldn’t be armed.
A criminal would not escape from the scene of the crime by shooting the cop on the beat. He would not get 20 yards from the cop’s body.
Citizens would regard a law enforcement officer as they regard their mothers. They would do what they were told with little more than rolling their eyes. If anyone physically challenged a police officer, he would risk facing a dozen Clint Eastwoods who have been waiting for two decades to get an opportunity to make their day.What North suggests is excessively utopian, and he admits that. It would be a best-case scenario for a small republic ("no larger than Iowa") with a Christian ethic, mindset, and worldview. The words, "You may say I'm a dreamer" come to mind:
There are those who will reply that my proposal is utopian, that civilians do not have sufficient courage to come to the aid of an unarmed policeman. Furthermore, they will complain, the common man is not sufficiently self-disciplined to live under the rule of law as I have described it. Both objections have validity. I can only respond by pointing out that a society in which its citizens possess neither courage nor self-discipline is not a free society. I am not here proposing a technical reform that will produce a free society. Rather, I am describing why freedom has departed from this nation ever since, for lack of a better date, 1788.Read the linked article if you are interested. At the very least, it offers a interesting fictional world for a libertarian science fiction writer to explore.
Also, Denninger's post from yesterday with comments is applicable. One standard -- badge or no badge: Commit murder, go to prison.
Here in New Zealand our police are 'technically' disarmed. That is to say they don't carry weapons on them, except at airports, and that's probably to comply with CAA regulations.
ReplyDeleteThey have handguns in their cars of course, which are accessible, and tasers - but very few New Zealanders are ever shot by police, maybe one a year or every two years? But then we are only 4.5M people.
We have our share of violent crazies, and criminals who are armed at times, however generally speaking citizens are not armed here in NZ, definitely no hand guns, and rifles with a permit only.
But then we don't have a gun culture like the USA, neither do we share the same history.
I first read Gary North's book 'backward Christian Soldiers' 40 years ago and was deeply impacted by it. Here was a Christian who thought so differently from those around me. I subsequently purchased his 'Biblical Blueprint' series, the best of which was probably 'honest money'. Haven't heard about him for a long time. Thanks for the link.
North is an interesting guy. I'm much more sympathetic to his eschatology than I used to be. I'm a recovering Dispensationalist.
ReplyDeleteTo disarm the cops here in some areas, you'd just have to make them no-go zones.
It is different. When I was a kid back in the '50s and early '60s, one of my dad's cousins on his mother's side was our county sheriff. He never carried a weapon. I don't think he even had a baton. If anyone resisted, he'd just wrestle them down and take them anyway. Times have changed.
Hi mushroom, I haven't read Gary North's book, but I like the idea to disarm the police and arm the voting public. Great idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm Australian, but born in Switzerland and there all the men are armed with military weapons including the police.
Hi, Paul, Switzerland had done well.
ReplyDeleteI note that the population of Switzerland is around 8 million. As Brendan points out, one of the problems the U.S. has is simply it's size.
My state has around 5 million citizens. We're still fairly rural and traditional. I used to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, what they call the Golden Triangle, which, back then, had around 5 million. It's much more populous now.
It seems the more people you have living in very close proximity, especially when they are not homogeneous, the more potential there is for violence and insanity.