As an American, what surprises me the most when I walk around Toulouse are the guns that the police always carry with them due to the plan Vigipirate. After spending about a month and a half in the city, I’ve noticed that guns can be seen much more often in public here than in the United States. The French police walk everywhere with their guns as they guard the neighborhood because it is their duty. However, this phenomenon continues to shock me each time I see it. It makes me very uncomfortable to see their semi-automatics and their larger guns – weapons that are surely loaded, might I add!
Soldiers with their guns as part of the plan Vigipirate. Photo by Claudia Vaughan.
In the United States, I live in the Midwest and rarely see guns. This is not to say that gun control laws are necessarily stricter than those of France. In fact, it may possibly be the other way around; recently, the Midwest had major legal problems regarding the Ferguson case in St. Louis, where I study at Washington University. A young man named Michael Brown was killed by a policeman’s gunfire, and these circumstances provoked several protests, including those of students from my university. Many people were upset by this shooting because they thought racial tensions underlined the situation (as Brown was black and the policemen white).
The Michael Brown case encouraged more discussion about police officers’ power and racial problems that continue to exist in the United States. These incidents where police officers abuse their power scare me and reinforce my idea that I do not support weapons. However, I understand that the role of police officers remains completely different in regards to the Michael Brown case compared to the attacks against the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Ferguson and Michael Brown represent conflict within a country, and this sort of issue requires a reexamination of gun control laws. Conversely, the police in France are not pitting one group within the country against another; instead, everything they do is for the security of the entire country. I think this distinction was very important for me because it was the first time I could see how the public possession of guns by the police could be something beneficial.
Overall, even though police guns are much more visible in France than in the United States, the French seem to be more comfortable with this atmosphere. At the moment, there is probably a more serious level of security than normal after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. Though the attack took place in Paris, it pained the entire country, and now it seems better to have more police officers around the larger cities of France. Upon reflection, I may be able to construct a new opinion of guns for myself: though I still consider the possession of guns to be something very dangerous and something that should be limited, if a population wants to have more armed police officers to ensure the security of their country as a whole (and not for war or any kind of guaranteed violence, of course), then that is a choice they have the right to make.
-Claudia Vaughan
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