A group of Democrats, progressives and others sent a letterThis week, the Biden administration asked officials to stop allowing police to access weapons from the military. They claimed that militarization of law enforcement has led to increased police violence against Black communities.
Representatives AyannaPressley (D.Massachusetts), Henry C. Johnson, and Sen. Brian Schatz were the leaders of their colleagues in the effort to urge administration officials to follow up on President Joe Biden’s police reform executive orderHe signed earlier this year a document that promised to investigate the effects of and ban the transfer to police of military weapons.
The lawmakers say that allowing police to use such weapons actively makes communities less safe and only enhances law enforcement officers’ mindset that they are in combat with the public. This claim is supported by research. A 2017 study supports this assertion. Found that, in counties that received militarized weapons, police killed over twice as many civilians as in counties that didn’t receive any military weapons.
“Militarized law enforcement increases the prevalence of police violence without making our communities safer,” the lawmakers wrote. “Furthermore, the negative effects of police militarization disproportionately affects communities of color.”
22 Democrats and progressives from the Senate and House signed the letter, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I.Vermont) and Rashida Talib (D-Washington). A wide variety of human rights organizations supported the letter effort, including those from progressive, labor, anti-discrimination, and other groups.
The lawmakers call for weapons listed in Biden’s executive order, including high-caliber firearms, gun silencers, grenades and grenade launchers, armored vehicles, weaponized drones, and other deadly weapons, to be on the “Prohibited Equipment List.” The list was established in 2016 under an order signed by former President Barack Obama, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from accessing certain weapons or equipment.
There are currently two federal programs by which the police receive most military-grade equipment like tear gas, rubber bullets and armored vehicles – via direct purchase, or as is more often the case, free of charge, through the 1033 program. This practice is so widespread that it is estimated that there is a $20 billion market for military weapons transfers to police. The exact value of the market is unknown as there is very little oversight of the transfers – perhaps deliberate, in order to obscure the links between the two entities.
Police and prison abolitionists That is what you should say the police and military are inherently intertwined, whether through weapons-sharing or law enforcement officers’ roles in perpetrating A police state. Short of the ability to reach abolitionists’ goal of defunding the police and military altogether – which they say is the only way to truly end police violence – many human rights groups have called forThe end of 1033.
The police’s use of militarized equipment – riot gear, armored vehicles and surveillance helicopters, high-caliber rifles, and more – are Many times On FullDisplay when the public protests against injustice. These weapons are used most often to suppress Black lives (or in Mass killings and raids ofBlack political advocates) were used to silence them in recent years. protesters against the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Before, lawmakers tried to stop the military weapons-to-police pipeline. In 2020, Schatz A modification was introducedto end 1033 later watered downInstead, the reforms were adopted as amendments to the 1033 program.
