Weapons of War Don’t Belong in Our Communities. The Senate Can Change That.
This week, the Senate will vote on our amendment which would reverse the flow of lethal military equipment to local police departments.
During the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests, local police turned our communities into war zones.
We all saw the terrifying images that dominated our screens. Police in military gear storming our streets. Combat vehicles rumbling down our city blocks. Tear gas unleashed on our neighbors.
These brutal crackdowns — frequently unprovoked and without warning — made it clear that police departments nationwide are outfitted as if they are going to war, not to protect and serve.
But American streets are not battlefields and Americans are not enemy combatants.
That’s why I’m leading a bipartisan group of senators to demilitarize the police. We introduced an amendment that will limit the military weapons flowing into our communities and stop police departments from turning these weapons on peaceful protestors.
A wide range of groups on the left and the right have come together to support our amendment. From the NAACP to FreedomWorks, from the National Urban League to R Street, we all agree: weapons of war don’t belong in our communities.
And with 60 votes in the Senate this week, we can turn that principle into law.
The 1033 program is one of the biggest drivers of police militarization.
Under this federal program, local police departments can receive excess military equipment free of charge. Some of these transfers include first aid kits, flashlights, and gloves, which help responses to natural disasters and medical emergencies.
But more than 8,000 police departments have also been using this program for years to stockpile dangerous military equipment with ease and at no cost. This includes heavy ammunition, tracked armored vehicles, grenades and grenade launchers, tear gas, and more.
As we’ve seen since the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson in 2014, just because the Department of Defense has excess weaponry doesn’t mean that the police will put it to good use. And according to the research, militarizing the police actually leads to more violence.
And if our troops can’t use tear gas against foreign enemies, police shouldn’t be able to use it on our streets here at home.
Here’s how our amendment will fix the 1033 program and to help make our communities safer:
1. Eliminate the free transfer of the most lethal weapons and equipment.
This means the military could no longer give local police departments:
- Tear gas
- Bayonets
- Grenade launchers, grenades, and explosives
- Armor-piercing firearms and ammunition
- Tracked combat vehicles
- Weaponized drones
2. Ban police from using any 1033 equipment against peaceful protestors.
Peaceful protestors are patriots — not enemies. Police should never use military equipment against Americans exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, assembly, and protest. Our bill will prohibit police departments from using any equipment they received through the 1033 program against peaceful protestors.
Amending the 1033 program is not the only thing we must do to root out racism and stamp out brutality in our law enforcement and criminal justice systems.
But it’s clear that this is somewhere we can start — and it’s a vote that we can win this week.
