When a Ferguson police officer shot Michael Brown to death in August, people cried out against police brutality and racist cops. When protesters tried to confront their local police about it, they were met with armed-to-the-teeth soldiers instead.

Some of the issues highlighted by the tragedy in Ferguson may take generations to fully resolve, but if America doesn’t turn back the dial on police militarization in a big way, we’re in deep trouble. 

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who thinks so. House Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Raúl Labrador (R-Id.) have introduced the Stop the Militarization of Law Enforcement Act of 2014.

What’s the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, you ask? Oh, no big deal. It’s just the U.S. military giving local police forces $4.3 billion worth of military grade weapons, gear and vehicles. Yeah, that’s why Ferguson looked like a war zone. 

The hand-outs started in 1990 with the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill authorized the Department of Defense to donate gear to federal and state agencies for use in the “War on Drugs.” 

The 1997 National Defense Authorization Act said the gear could be used for all “bona fide law enforcement purposes that assist in their arrest and apprehension mission.”

In other words, if police want to arrest you, they can employ the help of armored tanks, bayonets and even grenade launchers if they want, and Congress says that’s okay.

READ MORE: The War At Home: Why Police Need Their Own Ferguson Syllabus

In fact, according to Johnson and Labrador’s bill, a memo from the Defense Logistics Agency, the Department of Defense branch responsible for coordinating the transfers, said recipients have to start using donated gear within a year. Meaning, if you order a mine-resistant tank equipped with a 50-millimeter gun, you’d better put it to good use. Don’t have a reason? Find one.

The DOD says the materials are to help local police forces mount counterterrorism attacks if and when necessary. The DLA cites the police response to the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013 as a shining achievement of the 1033 Program, claiming military gear used in the police response helped minimize the number of killed and injured. I, on the other hand, viscerally remember my skin crawling while I watched news coverage of tanks rolling through the streets of Boston in search of two men.

A major problem with this justification is that there’s no oversight system to monitor how the materials are being used. In effect, police can use them however they like. 

What’s even scarier is that many of the officers with access the military weapons aren’t properly trained to use them. CNN reports cite Army veteran Josh Weinberg who said police should be exercising an “escalation of force” when handling these heavy-duty weapons. He said in the military, you never point a weapon directly at someone unless you’re ready to pull the trigger, a mistake police have been photographed making in Ferguson.

Johnson and Labrador’s bipartisan bill would limit what could be transferred under the 1033 Program. Namely, they seek to embargo  “equipment inappropriate for local policing,” like armored tanks, grenade launchers, military-grade assault rifles, guns and armed drones. 

“Militarizing America’s main streets won’t make us any safer, just more fearful and more reticent,” Johnson said in a press release. “Our bill would restore the focus of local law enforcement on protecting citizens and providing due process for the accused.”

Johnson’s been working on the bill for a while but Ferguson pushed the topic to the forefront. So far, the bill has around 20 co-sponsors, and lawmakers in both the House and Senate are echoing its sentiment.

Notably, Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed for Time magazine in August calling for the demilitarization of police. Relatively unsurprising given his libertarian background, but important nevertheless because of his influence in the GOP.

“There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response. The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action,” he says in the article. “Americans must never sacrifice their liberty for an illusive and dangerous, or false, security. This has been a cause I have championed for years, and one that is at a near-crisis point in our country.”

While the Congressional gridlock often hinders legislation, it seems like there is strong enough bipartisan support to actually turn this bill into reality. 

If it does pass, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact it will have. The bill only prevents a handful of specific items from being transferred under the program, so there would still be some sharing. 

However, it would be a start. It would send a message to the Pentagon and the public, and it's a message we need to send. If we don’t act on our outrage against this trend, it won’t reverse on its own. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wake up one morning to find Los Angeles has become the next Ferguson. What happens if police unleash Ferguson-style tactics on a city of almost four million? I'm imagining a mash-up of L.A.'s 1992 Rodney King uprisings and the militarized police exhibited in Ferguson, and it’s a terrifying thought. 

Since 9/11, American civilians have been incredibly indebted to the U.S. military for keeping the War on Terror out of our towns and streets. Police militarization has the potential to turn a town into a warzone, stripping us of that safety; in Ferguson, it already has. I want to go back to the way things were before war became so normalized between police and civilians. I want peace officers on our streets, not soldiers. Legislation like this seems like a solid first step back in the right direction.