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Machine Gun Fire From Military Helicopters Flying Over Downtown Miami
Okian Warrior writes with word that, as of Monday evening, multiple police agencies and the military were "conducting training exercises over Miami and elsewhere in the county. The exercise includes military helicopters firing machine-gun blanks while flying over highways and buildings. This YouTube video shows helicopters strafing highways with blank rounds near the Adrian Arts center. There are reports of similar actions in Houston From the Houston article: 'if you see the helicopters or hear gunfire, it's only a drill.'" Note: this time, it's not in The Onion.
With "exercises" of this nature, are you sure the gun nuts are so nuts after all?
This reminds me of the 2004 incident where the bullets were live.
somehow the pilot was miles off course when he started shooting...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05strafe.html
The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said last night
And yet, how well is the US Military doing against the Taliban, etc. who are also armed with mostly small arms and some improvised explosive devices?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
What if someone on the ground started shooting back?
-Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat-
Perhaps you should ask an American Indian.
If you can find one.
And defending themselves against other civilians. Firearms are the equalizer that allow the weak to protect themselves from the strong, or simply against the many. If you look at the documentation of incidents, legal gun-owners are almost never the... "abusers" as you put it.
There is a sweet spot between paranoia and complacency in which all reasonable men should dwell.
The State is a wild animal that must be kept on a leash, yet can do great good when properly trained and handled correctly.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
How much of this is because committing another crime means they are an illegal gun owner?
If I buy a gun legally, then use it to protect my drughouse and in the course of that action kill someone. Will your statistics capture me as a legal gun owner?
Our military has enormous lands throughout the U.S. including large areas of forest and desert and even uninhabited towns and cities built specifically for training exercises. The government was building lots of little makeshift towns just to blow them up with nuclear weapons during the cold war. You can find lots of videos of the government testing bombs in massive stretches of the desert. I've taken weapons training on SWAT courses that are like little ghost towns where the instructors have makeshift bridged built all over the course where they can walk above you and take notes on where you messed up something.
It's one thing to have military planes fly over civilian airspace. You have to test these planes traveling for hundreds of miles so of course they'll eventually have to fly over some commercial airspace. Or to have security training exercises be done and rehearsed at an event before it happens. Like the security teams that are not rehearsing the Super Bowl security at the actual stadium. But low flying helicopters? Shooting blanks at civilians and civilian vehicles? What possible reason could there be for that?
What's next? Armed soldiers patrolling the streets shooting blanks at people on the sidewalk? Why not? It's a perfectly safe exercise that won't cause panic at all.
"Hey it's just a training exercise...now put that cellphone camera down or we'll have to detain you. Now go home and watch American Gladiators and go back to bed".
Imagine the fun it's going to be when armed soldiers start firing blanks and some civilian has no idea what is going on and fires back. Or when people start panicking and cause a riot. I'm all for keeping a well trained military....but using our own people as the targets? What kind of self respecting soldier went on this mission without protesting it?
Calm down citizen. It's just part of our new anti-terrorist Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response program. It's for your protection.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
That is how these statistics are often mangled.
Like the ones MADD kept for years that made any accident in which any passenger or pedestrian was in any way intoxicated into an alcohol related accident even if the driver was stone cold sober.
Well, here's someone never in .mil nor looked at a map. Even wargamers know tanks are dead meat in cities under any circumstances other than a peaceful show of force, and more generally without infantry support they don't last long even in the "open" countryside. Generally speaking tanks vs infantry turns out pretty well for the infantry as a group given identical intelligence / experience / skill. Stupidity or desperation can force infantry into being slaughtered by armor, but it usually doesn't turn out that way. Basically tanks can't see very well, can only shoot in one direction (and slowly) and are remarkably fragile other than frontal armor hits where they are, admittedly, pretty much invincible. Tanks are really good at helping infantry take out a hard position like a machine gun bunker, plus or minus the bunker having some anti-tank rounds or more hilariously anti-tank minefield in the "obvious" firing positions.
Combined arms only works if... its combined... not just merely exists or deployed separately in complete isolation
Now what infantry really doesn't like is trained experienced snipers operating defensive at time and place of their choosing on their own very well known turf aka gun nuts.
Also if you think the supply line for a bunch of, basically, overgrown hunters, is insecure and easy to cut, you surely have never seen an armor supply line. The best way to fight armor (and air!), if you're in no great hurry, is to hide from / avoid / ignore it and go after the fuel / food / water / supply convoys. Hmm sound like a scenario where the US has recently lost the war? A broken tank is basically useless tactically and the MTBF isn't as good as you'd like to think under combat conditions.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Good point. Any time I hear how magnificent, holy, Christian, or righteous our nation is or was, I just invoke the names of many of the native American tribes who were driven into desolate reservations in deserts and badlands that white immigrants couldn't grow corn on. I love how wealthy white people complain when they lose their homes to squatters that laws such as "adverse possession" are immoral, antiquated, and should be repealed. But adverse possession is a cornerstone of our democracy. Without such laws we would have to give it all back to the people we took it from.
It was old white men who put the 2nd amendment into the Constitution, but defending your limited rights against a powerful government is something I'll support any day. It doesn't mean that the armed citizen will always win, but arms and the potential use of force allows people a stronger negotiating position. The US Cavalry couldn't "tame" the West until the introduction of the Gattling gun, which had a higher rate of fire and ammo capacity than any over-the-counter assault rifle you can buy today.
But if native peoples with rifles on horsebackwere no threat to US interests then I guarantee we would not have so many treaties that are still in effect today. Many people don't realize that on native lands state law does not apply. Reservations function as independent nations except that only Federal laws are enforced, and even such Federal enforcement is very rare.
Generally the "don't spend my money"ers are actually "don't spend my money except on things that cause violent death"ers.
Generally the people that try to downplay how much money we are spending, by attacking other people, don't actually know the enormity of the spending and thusly don't give a shit that their partisan antics are a dangerous public menace.
Total government spending in the United States has grown to $6.2 trillion (2012), and with ~115 million households thats ~$54000 per household.
The median income for those 115 million households was $53000.
I used the word 'enormity', but really it does not encompass the problem here. The government spends more per household than the median income of households.
While you sit there being a partisan dickhead, the most important problem that we face today goes completely unnoticed by you. If there were an official definition of 'ignorant douche' you would be it.
"His name was James Damore."
This was an interesting observation, thank you. I have long been concerned about this observation of Orwell:
This is from an article he wrote about the atom bomb. When I look at the rising expense and sophistication of modern militaries, and at the neo-colonialism my own dear patria and its allies seem willing to engage in, the future looks quite dark. But the cheapness and effectiveness of modern small arms and guerrilla tactics may be just coming into its own.
There is a scenario where the new possibilities for independence may not lie with people but with large organizations like governments. What makes it possible for asymmetrical warfare to be successful on the part of the weaker defender is that he is able to inflict asymmetical costs on the attacker. Drones may be changing that. If drones do not also find their way into private hands, like small arms, or if they don't turn out to be easily hackable, then future wars will rarely involve liabilities like tanks. In several countries the U.S. in involved in, this is already the case.
"Basically tanks can't see very well, can only shoot in one direction (and slowly) and are remarkably fragile other than frontal armor hits"
As a former Airborne Rifle Squad Leader in the 82nd, and former Bradley Master Gunner in the 1st CAV, I can assure you that this hasn't been the case in the last 30 or more years.
1. American tanks have an advantage in weapon range (commonly called standoff) over Infantry units. It's difficult to kill a tank if it can park and take potshots at you beyond your ability to effectively return fire.
2. They each have a TTS (tank thermal sight) that can display images based on a single degree of temperature difference, and combat as an infantrymen has a tendency to dramatically raise body temperature so that you literally glow in their sights.
3. The tank commander and gunner each have an independently operated sight, and the commander can shift and designate a new target while the gunner is still engaging the old target.
4. They can travel easily over moderate (not pristine) terrain at speeds greater than 45 MPH.
"Combined arms only works if... its combined... "
Yes. That also applies to the infantry.
So here's a thought. Go spend two or three hours walking around your local hardware store collecting the items you will need to kill (or at least render ineffective) an M1 Abrahms. Then figure out how you'll kill the other 100+ M1's that are right behind it.
Good luck, pal.
I think what we are seeing now may be something like standard game-theoretical escalation (between 'government' and 'citizenry').
Since the (corruption-driven) economic crisis, an increase in resistance-like protests have put those in power on edge. Perceiving increased resistance from a portion of the population, those in power are purposely scaling up their defenses against potential resistance (increased surveillance and attempts at gun control, bills like HR 347 and executive orders that grant extraordinary powers, usurpation of due process and indefinite detention etc.).
The game-theoretical result of this is that at the grassroots level, a small but steadily increasing proportion of the citizenry starts to (basically rightfully) sense that the government is escalating against the citizenry. This fuels further calls for resistance, calls for revolution from some quarters, the massively increased gun sales and stockpiling we've seen, and so on.
The game-theoretical result of that in turn is a government saying "oh shit, the people look increasingly likely to revolt", and the result of that is this kind of escalation - a raw display of brute power intended to demonstrate that we'd better all keep in line, "or else" - it's a kind of veiled threat, a kind of shock and awe tactic. "Behave citizens, or next time there'll be real bullets".
We're currently on a game-theory escalation path to increasing fascism and oppression and possibly a prolonged low-grade guerilla-style 'civil war' (though it will never be called a civil war, it will be called 'terrorism').
The proper solution is that both people and government need to try work with each other as partners toward a common goal, both 'sides' need to calm down and negotiate with mutual interest in the concerns (and rights) of the 'other side'.
In reality the government is now so corrupt and overtaken by corporatist interests (e.g. banks who are now supposedly too powerful even to prosecute for serious crimes, and a 'fox guarding the henhouse' situation at the treasury and Fed) that it might not be possible for true cooperation.
My other UID is three digits.
What makes you think the military would be any more successful fighting a guerrilla war here?
much bigger targets
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
of course it could be done and i'd wager $1000 that there already plans similar to what i say sitting in a file cabinet somewhere.
do it the same way every totalitarian government does, by using soldiers with existing general hostilities to the population they will be suppressing
send the bible belt soldiers to police the godless liberal traitors in california
send the black soldiers to police the cracka racists in the south
send the northeastern soldiers to police the whackjob traitors in the midwest
send the deep southern soldiers to police the coward yankee bastards up north.
if the soldiers you send to each area, blame the people from that area for starting "all of this" they will for the most part follow their orders as long as said orders are not profoundly outrageous "go machinegun some peaceful civillians" but an order to "keep that riot under control, and by the way rules of engagement allow automatic weapons and hand grenades if your life is in danger" will work just fine.
Also at the beginning you keep the rules of engagement too strict and the patrols too small and too sparse until something happens to one of them.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
That "hearts and minds" thing is complete and utter bullshit. I sorta believed in that shit when I was a boot, fresh out of boot camp. Sorta. That wore off, though.
YOU DO NOT WIN HEARTS AND MINDS BY MARCHING ARMED GRUNTS AROUND FOREIGN CITIES AND COUNTRIES!!
Either you were genuinely, openly invited to be there - or you're an invader. Invaders aren't loved anywhere. Hearts and minds are dead set against invaders, always and forever.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br