Did Rick cross a line by taking all Oceanside’s guns on The Walking Dead?

There’s a different set of morality rules in The Walking Dead but Rick and the other survivors skirted the line of what’s morally acceptable by stealing Oceanside’s weapons.

On the  second to last episode of The Walking Dead this season “Something They Need’ the survivors went to Oceanside to try to convince the women there to give up their guns to the survivors. Rick and the group need those guns to get Jadis and The Scavengers on board to fight Negan.

But even though Tara went in first to try to reason with Natania and the Oceansiders the group was ready to take the guns if they had to. As it turned out, they had to. Oceanside didn’t want to join the fight. Not all of them anyway. Cyndie and some of the others did want to fight but the decision had to be unanimous so Oceanside is not joining the war. Not yet anyway.

However, Rick and the others came prepared to take the guns by force. They set off explosives in a show of power and had no problems having an armed standoff with the Oceansiders to force the issue. Is this what the group has become? Stealing guns by force and leaving a group of survivors on their own with no weapons after setting off explosives that would have every walker in the area heading right for them? As Negan would say, “Not cool Rick. That is so not cool.”

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Apocalypse Morality

Maybe the group didn’t entirely cross the line because they didn’t hurt any of the Oceanside women but they definitely were skirting it. It’s not like the survivors to act like that. And it may not end well for them. The last time that Rick made a questionable command decision it didn’t turn out so well for the survivors.

The last time Rick skirted the moral line was when he made a deal with Gregory to slaughter The Saviors at the outpost in order to get food for Alexandria. That ended up getting Glenn and Abe killed and put the survivors in servitude to Negan.

The reigning moral philosophy in The Walking Dead world seems to be Utilitarianism, where actions that bring the greatest good for the greatest number of people are morally permissible. But even though it’s understandable that Rick and the survivors see Oceanside’s guns as the key to being able to win the fight against Negan it still doesn’t seem right to take them by force.

Next: How can Alexandria trust Dwight?

Time will tell if the decision to bully Oceanside into giving up their guns will help the survivors in the fight against Negan. But it also could have ramifications that they don’t see right now, just like slaughtering The Saviors did.