The Bigger Issue Behind Protest in Ferguson

After the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to indict Michael Brown's killer, Officer Darren Wilson, one thing that grabbed my attention- apart from the massive, even destructive, protesting- was the flood of stories* I saw of police killing unarmed white people. People were posting with intent to show that the tragedy in Ferguson was not an issue of race and also not uncommon as one may think, revealed to me what I believe to be the bigger issue behind the Michael Brown killing: gun control.

The truth is that there are a similar proportion (accounting for population differences) of whites killed by police to blacks killed by police: 326 whites to 123 blacks in 2012 (The O'Reilly Factor, 2:20). This means that race is not what is causing police to kill people. Everyone is being similarly harmed. The most effective way to protect people from police violence in the future would be to take away their guns, like in countries such as Britain and New Zealand.

However, of course, that would be impossible because of the insanely high number of regular citizens that carry guns. Unarmed police would be in greater danger themselves, and, in some situations, useless in protecting others from violence. Therefore, gun control must be significantly increased for everyone, in order to begin the process towards a less violent nation. Ideally, we will live in a nation where police can assume citizens are unarmed, and citizens would never have to think of an officer using his firearm during an interaction.

Unfortunately, the main defense of guns is the fairly strong: the second amendment right, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". Guns have been engrained in our nation from the beginning. Luckily, our constitution also says that it was designed to be changed with time, both in the elastic clause and the fifth article, in order to best serve our ever-evolving country. It is called an amendment. And never has one been more called for than when guns- something legal for civilians to carry on their person- are responsible for facilitating thousands and thousands of homicides each year, over 11,000 in 2013.

By gradually decreasing the prevalence of firearms, whether it be through a strict amendment or decreasing their accessibility, hopefully police will once again be viewed as those sworn to protect, and young men such as Michael Brown will not be "legally" killed by their sidearms.




*Many stories of those who have been killed by police violence are documented on the website: www.innocentdown.org