It’s the cop, not the rifle
I’ ll probably be dismissed as just another gun nut being nutty about guns, but I confess to not being particularly bothered by the recent decision by the Toronto Police Service to deploy 51 C8 carbines ( compact rifles) to frontline officers. The carbines will be kept secured inside cruisers, one assigned to each of the city’s policing divisions. The C8s are very similar to the carbines carried by Canadian military personnel (which are themselves closely related to the American M4 carbine, which is a compact, modernized version of the M16 rifle). So, essentially, Toronto cops with M16s.
( Gun aficionados: Yes, I know. I’m simplifying here. Cut me some slack.)
The response to this announcement has been … predictable, for lack of a better term, in many quarters. Some citizens have made reasonable arguments against what they see as a step toward the militarization of Canadian police (I share these concerns in a general sense, but rifles do not a militarized police force make). Some have concerns about recent high-profile incidents where Toronto police have opened fire on individuals or vehicles. How much more dangerous, these citizens ask, would these incidents have been if the officers were armed with “assault rifles” instead of handguns? Other citizens, on the reflexively anti-police fringe, simply don’t like cops, don’t trust them and probably wouldn’t have reacted well if the announcement had been issuing fresh office supplies to the force, either. All in all, though, the debate has been interesting to watch.
Mark Pugash, director of corporate communications for the Toronto police, joined me on my radio show on Friday and took many of these issues on. He made a good case. The police aren’t adding additional weapons, he said, but swapping them — the 12-gauge shotguns that North American police have used as their heavier weapon for decades will be withdrawn from service as the rifles are phased in ( the shotguns will be converted into so-called “bean bag” weapons, which are less lethal alternatives to conventional firearms). The rifles are more accurate than the shotguns, he noted, and better able to penetrate the body armour that criminals and terrorists are increasingly using all over the world. Pugash added that officers will be well trained in the operation of the rifles and noted that they have already been added to the inventory of, not only numerous other Canadian (and even Torontoarea) police forces, but have indeed long been part of the arsenal of the Toronto SWAT team, known as the Emergency Task Force. He further stressed that Toronto police are held to a high standard of accountability whenever they draw or use their firearms ( that’s a more debatable point, but I’ ll come back to it in a minute).
All in all, I found Pugash’s arguments persuasive. But hey, I’m the gun-owning, pro-law-and-order and generally pro-cop guy (and not bad with a C8, either). So I would be persuaded, one supposes. But Pugash didn’t — couldn’t, in fairness, given his position — make the argument I actually find most material here: it’s the quality of cop you have, not the gun they carry, that matters.
This isn’t some ode to the glories of policing and our fabulous men and women in blue. I do think Canadians and Torontonians are generally blessed to have a competent, professional police, and the overwhelming majority of officers I know are honourable, decent and dedicated. With only two exceptions, both fairly mild, my interactions with police have been excel- lent. Add that to my lineage — cops all up and down the family tree — and I come to my general affection for the police, and police officers, honestly.
But I still acknowledge that there are issues, and that these issues need addressing, now. Police forces are not accountable enough, especially in situations where guns have been drawn or fired — after-action reports and bureaucrat hassles don’t constitute accountability. More broadly, the public feels, with too much reason, that there’s one law for the police and another for everyone else, and that in the thankfully rare instances where cops behave badly, they won’t be punished. That’s a problem.
There are also fundamental trust issues. Way, way too many times in recent years, police all across North America have provided versions of events that independent video recordings, or other forms of evidence, have later proven to be blatant lies.
There are also problems with patrol and investigative techniques that leave too many feeling singled out for their race or religion. I said above that almost all of my experiences with the police have been good, and I’m not blind to the fact that being a generic issue WASPy dude who dresses reasonably well, speaks unaccented English and lives in a well-to-do area absolutely plays a part in that.
These are the issues. They need to be fixed. In some areas, I think we’re making progress. In others, not so much, and that worries me.
But fundamentally, the firearm an officer carries just isn’t germane to these arguments. In theory, a C8 rifle is more powerful than a .40 Glock, but over the distances an officer will ever be shooting in, it’s not materially significant. A rifle’s advantages in power and range become clear over battlefield distances, not in alleyway shootouts. Cops with scary rifles may anger the cop haters, in other words, but they actually don’t matter.
Toronto, and all of Canada, needs cops that are properly trained, accountable and in touch with their communities.
In large part, this is what we have. In the places and ways we don’t, we should work on that. In the meantime, getting upset about swapping out one type of firearm for another is a sideshow. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball, folks — those in uniform, and the rest.
Matt Gurney is a columnist for, and editor of, the National Post Comment section. He hosts National Post Radio every weekday morning from six to nine Eastern on SiriusXM’s Canada Talks, channel 167.
THE ISSUE ISN’T WHAT KIND OF FIREARM AN OFFICER CARRIES, BUT WHETHER THE SYSTEM THAT KEEPS HIM ACCOUNTABLE WORKS.