Informative Essay: Guns In The Military

M16s in the Military Guns in and of themselves are not inherently evil or destructive. Unlike some of the technology we have discussed, the microwave beam, nuclear warfare, biochemical agents, guns are less controversial and pose less of an ethical problem in their mere existence; it is how they are used and under what circumstances that matters. Context matters. Military grade weapons being used in the military is contextually on morally stable grounds. The M16 would be covered under ad bellum and in bello rules. According to proportionality and appropriate force, the force needed to win should be used, but no more so that it is excessive and causes unnecessary harm to adversaries. M16s, as a standard rifle that is used against similar rifles …show more content…
American policing has not looked so much like the military ever before in history. The ACLU’s executive report, War Comes Home; The Excessive Militarization of American Policing states that, “Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies” (1). This was attributed to the programs that arm law enforcement with “American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized, in large part through federal programs that have armed state and local law enforcement agencies with the weapons and tactics of war, with almost no public discussion or oversight ” …show more content…
Although the rhetoric here does not involve the War on Drugs, it is evocative of Nixon’s (1971) language about the need to securitize domestic policing in the face of a foreign threat. (Randil et. al, 18)
Here, the perceptions of foreign danger are contributing to the acceptance of the 1033 program, and what comes with it, military grade weapons; weapons that have been used to fight wars which are now being used