The Star Tribune recently posed the question on their website “In general, do you think that police departments should or should not have surplus military equipment” to which 46% said no, 43% said yes, and 11% said that they were not sure.

This is a tough question because it lumps together bulletproof vests and protective equipment with assault weapons.

It is important to assert that I believe that our police need to be protected from the job that they do. But they are called paramilitary for a reason.

There must be a line in the sand between those that enforce the law, and those that combat enemies of the state.

It’s said that the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. In this case the desire to help Law enforcement to be more efficient and safe opens up the door to militarized police patrolling the streets.

Where I do believe that it is acceptable for police to have protective gear like military grade bullet resistant material, it is always important to keep military weapons from falling into non-military hands.

Once we blur the line between military and Paramilitary we find ourselves walking down a very dark path that once begun is very hard to turn around.

A friend once posed to me his definition of Law enforcment which was that “to protect ourselves from thugs we hire scarier thugs.”

I don’t have that pessemistic of an outlook on policing, and I do believe that the majority of Police Officers are good and hardworking people, it is important nevertheless to maintain our vigilance in the name of our civil rights.

In the wake of such examples of police butality like the Fergusen shootings, we must always fight for our rights and our protection, for and from our police service.

Most of us will probably never experiece anything like that, but the essence of civil justice is that it is universal. We don’t just stand up for ourselves, we stand up for our society as a whole.

In this case it is about stopping our war mentality from infecting our rule of law. Because being a criminal a bonifide enemy of the state is very rarely the same thing.

-David Roland