A
few summers ago, I moved to Reykjavík to research
the Scandinavian human rights framework. The
land was a playground, and every night my friends
and I played. Natural trampolines of thick moss, crystal clear
geothermal pools tucked in the mountains and a clan of cats
roaming the streets gave us unfettered fun. Knowing I was
there for research, many of my friends would offer ideas
about the history of Iceland, how they wish it’d been written,
and how it had been instead. Other times I found myself in the
company of those close to the center of political change, like
the night I shared a cab home from a party with the former
prime minister’s son. But I learned more about issues of
disarmament and human rights by accident, in the interludes
when I wasn’t looking for answers.
One night, while a friend and I drove through Iceland’s
ceaseless daylight, she turned to me and asked if I had ever
seen a gun. I scoffed, but she was sincere. She had never seen
one in her life, though she glimpsed partial images of them on
some American television shows. I had seen guns more times
than I could count: holstered, cocked, displayed, pointed,
referenced, possessed, carried. Didn’t that make me anxious?
She wanted to know. Though my instinct was to defend my
normal, I wondered, “Does the overwhelming presence of
weaponry cause anxiety?” Surely, she’d seen guns, I insisted,
like when she got pulled over for speeding, as she always did.
“Why should that entail guns?” She asked. Now it was her
turn to scoff.
Guns are written into the American fabric. America’s
propensity for violence is undisputed, and its perpetuation by
guns is unignorable. And while it is estimated that nearly half
of American households own a gun or firearm, many more
Americans have likely seen guns firsthand. We encounter
guns all the time, like at the entrances to concert venues
or music festivals, patrolling sporting events or any other
number of the places we go for leisure. Despite the carnage
guns are responsible for, they are a staple of the places we go
to enjoy our lives. Why?
Guns have become a feature of American life, in large
part, because of their proliferation among the police. To the
moderate, gun presence is non-alarming; to the ambivalent,
normal; and to the realist, necessary. But we have to question
the ubiquity of armed state actors and interrogate the
perceived irreversibility of our systems of state security.
In the social contract theories which undergird our
relationship to our government, we are promised security,
and in exchange for some personal liberties, we nominate
the state as our protectorate. But what happens when our
protectorate fails to keep us safe? It’s more likely than you
think. Over the past two years alone, nearly 2,000 people
were reported killed extrajudicially by police in the U.S.
When combined with the first months of 2019, the three-year
total reaches 2,779.
Research shows this is not a universal phenomenon.
In many places around the world, including the United
Kingdom, Norway and New Zealand, police are unarmed,
or must go through extensive reporting processes to receive
permission to unlock the arms they travel with. More
alarming than the American statistics is the nonchalance
with which we address the matter; officers who commit
on-duty manslaughter rarely face charges, and instead,
they are granted paid time off. We reward those employed
to protect us even when they fail to do so and neglect to
hold them accountable for the killings they commit against
everyday citizens. We as a nation have come to believe in, and
ironically, protect, a “thin blue line,” but in doing so, we forget
that the government can train more cops anytime it chooses.
It’s us citizens that have only one chance.
For a long time, I clung to the words of Bertha Von Suttner
in her nearly 500-page manifesto, “Lay Down Your Arms,”
which, when read by her friend Alfred, led to the creation
of the Nobel Peace Prize, and, when read by me, rekindled
a personal commitment in my scholarship to understand,
track and eradicate weapon proliferation and violent
conflict. While I still feel pulled to her ideals of total civilian
disarmament, I know now there is nuance in the way we
negotiate our safety.
As the nation pushes for gun control more broadly and
deeply, it’s necessary to consider which communities would be
most impacted by the loss of providing for their own personal
protection. If the constitutional idea underpinning citizen
weaponry is to maintain a way to overpower the government
when necessary, we should think again about whether
handfuls of handguns can really counteract the world’s most
powerful military and most entrenched military-industrial
complex. If gun control calls for the radical abandonment of
personal weapons, we’ll have to have our security guaranteed.
State actors, like the police, are supposed to make manifest
that security, but the modern system of American policing
cannot make that promise.
A few months ago in London, another hub of unarmed
police, a friend and I were headed out to enjoy one of the rare
sunny days of spring with a picnic in one of the many sprawling
gardens on the city’s north side. After taking double-decker
buses most of the way, we jumped out to walk the remaining
blocks, hoping to maximize the time we’d spend in the light.
The route we took was haphazard, and we walked behind
dumpsters, over driveways and through seemingly privately-
owned lawns. I resisted. I wanted to return to a path, a bus, a
designated area where we could not be penalized. “What are
you so afraid of?” My friend demanded of me. In hindsight
I don’t know if we were on private or prohibited property,
another largely American concept, or that it would even
be policed if we were. But my fear of punitive action that
overuses force is not unfounded.
My parents always worry before I go abroad about the
multitude of dangers that might befall me, but I’ve always
been more afraid of late nights driving alone on overpoliced
Michigan highways — when the darkness of night makes
abuses of authority more untraceable, unpunishable — than
I ever have of shenanigans under other sovereigns. Because,
while seeing guns is a facet of American public life, still more
disconcerting are the times we don’t see them.
In Michigan, cops have concealed carry licenses, which
means off-duty officers carrying their government-issued
firearms and handguns can do so in secret, ensuring fellow
citizens cannot see they are armed. What could be the purpose
of hiding a gun on someone’s person in the public spaces we
share? Are police officers never off-duty, just undercover?
Are they to be vigilant at all times, prepared to launch into
armed attacks in situations where they are not beckoned? We
know the consequences of this are high. Take the recent case
against former officer Amber Guyger, who was “off-duty”
but armed when she mistakenly entered a Dallas apartment
which was not her own, but her neighbor’s, who she mistook
for an intruder and shot and killed them. How are citizens to
survive when they cannot know the fight they are up against?
My childhood home was part of that American half which
has a gun. It never provided any semblance of security to me.
As a young girl, I knew only that I could not go near it nor
touch it, and as a young adult I wanted nothing to do with it.
This guttural reaction of distrust of weaponry transfers to
the institution of armed policing; it is not a criticism of those
individuals who feel they are serving the country and its
people. In fact, my original interest in, and insider knowledge
about, security forces comes from a deeply personal
connection. My father is a police officer, and he offered
candidness about a system that desperately needs reform.
From his vantage point, police militarization seemed only to
create domestic warzones, and it was this observation and his
doubts about the institution’s ability to provide justice that
inspired me to question it further. The gun in my household
was a police gun. It makes no difference.
I know the answer to the question asked of me in Iceland
now … and it is, “Yes, I am anxious.” Armed, unchecked
figures of authority have given me every reason to be. So,
when we decide to say lay down your arms, I want this to
mean lay down our arms inclusively.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 // The Statement
A
uthor’s note: This entire story is 100-percent true and
actually happened to me, and I’m pretty traumatized
from it, even if I don’t usually show it.
I
n the forest along the Potomac River, a few miles from my
house, there is a large tree that hangs over deep water. It
has been altered by many people; they have etched their
names into the bark, nailed boards to climb up the trunk, added
A
“success”
story
BY DANYEL THARAKAN,
STATEMENT PHOTO
EDITOR
Gun
control
for those
who
control
guns
BY EMILY RUSSELL,
STATEMENT
CONTRIBUTOR
See “SUCCESS”, Page 6B
Is it worth it?
a small platform to jump down and tied a rope to swing into the
water. Beer cans and other garbage litter the small makeshift
beachfront. I have been to that tree once, and I will never go
back.
I
t was the summer after senior year of high school, and
I was high off of graduation and my recent trip to India
and Vietnam. After hearing about many friends’ fun
expeditions to the swimming hole, I finally decided to tag along.
My mom later joked, rather morbidly, that I had been completely
fine traveling through Vietnam with only my sister, but nearly
died upon returning to the United States.
On a standard D.C. August afternoon with blistering
temperatures and humidity, Sam, Fox, Fox’s girlfriend Pauline
and I piled into Sam’s 20-year-old Toyota. We drove along
the George Washington Memorial Parkway until we reached
the scenic overlook where we parked and headed down the
improvised trail to the swimming hole. The spot is very isolated;
you have to climb down nearly 100 feet on a steep cliff face,
where someone tied a rope to some roots to help you rappel your
way down, and then once you reach the river, you walk another
few hundred feet alongside the river to reach the tree.
Once we reached the swimming hole, we set up our little camp
with a couple towels and the snacks and drinks we brought with
us. Several other groups of people were already there, sharing
the communal space (and our chips). Being more adventurous
than me, Fox and Sam both immediately scampered up the
tree, grabbed onto the rope and Tarzan-swung into the water.
I, being much more nervous and cautious, slowly climbed up the
tree, gripping each plank as I went. I stood at the top, staring at
the water twenty feet below. I wasn’t confident enough to swing
on the rope; if I lost my grip or held on too long, I could fall into
shallow water. Eventually, enough people heckled me that I
plugged my nose, closed my eyes and stepped off the platform,
not really jumping off, more so ungracefully falling off into the
river. Somewhere in the 20 feet of airtime between the tree and
the water, my feet ended up above my butt, so I landed square on
my ass — it proceeded to hurt for the next hour. I had my fill of
adventure for the day and decided not to try it again.
We spent the next several hours like this, chatting among
ourselves and with the other groups there, interspersed with the
occasional swim when the heat became unbearable. Someone I
didn’t know gave me a beer, and we shared the tortilla chips and
salsa we brought with everyone else. By the time evening came
(though there were still at least two hours until sunset), almost
all of the other groups had left, except for us and one other group
of five guys. They were still mostly friendly, but only spoke
Spanish, so Pauline and I could speak with them, but not Sam
or Fox. Pauline and I continued chatting with the five of them
intermittently, with Fox and Sam awkwardly left out, but after
a few minutes the five of them turned inward and spoke only
among themselves with the occasional glance in our direction.
We thought about leaving, feeling a little threatened, but
convinced ourselves that this was nonsense. After all, over
several hours, we shared our food with them, conversed with
them, participated together in a classic summer activity and
coexisted in a communal place. If something was going to
happen, we surmised, it would’ve happened already. If you can’t
trust people in a space like that, where can you trust someone?
Who could be the kind of monster who would do all of those
things with a group of people and still wrong them in the end?
Our judgement got in the way. Things got worse. They started
harassing Pauline, talking about how Fox “wasn’t man enough”
and that she should date one of them instead. They were
obviously a little drunk and started talking shit about us. The
about-face was very sudden. We had been having a good time
up until then, but now knew something was very, very wrong.
Escape seemed impossible, as they were standing above us on
the “beach” and blocking the only way out; even if we made it
past them, it was another 100 feet climbing straight up to reach
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAGGIE WIEBE