America 'Has Become a War Zone'

An anonymous reader writes, quoting Business Insider: "Eight different law enforcement agencies in Indiana have purchased massive Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP) that were formerly used in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mark Alesia reports for the Indy Star. Pulaski County, home to 13,124 people, is one of the counties that have purchased an 55,000 pound, six-wheeled patrol vehicles, from military surplus. When asked to justify the purchase of a former military vehicle, Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer told the Indy Star: "The United States of America has become a war zone."'

Comments

War of government against people?

[gweihir]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment, then it has long abandoned any pretense of serving the people and has instead reverted to its original purpose of fighting the people for those in power.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're fighting violent uneducated animals you need this equipment. This documentary covers the problem fairly well: http://www.youtube.com/v/z5MGJ87hPGw

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

OR

The Police are the civil servant equivalent of the 40ish divorced guy driving a Corvette.

Big weapons? Tim Taylor grunt...we have big weapons.

Re:War of government against people?

[Nidi62]

OR

The Police are the civil servant equivalent of the 40ish divorced guy driving a Corvette.

Big weapons? Tim Taylor grunt...we have big weapons.

Pretty much this. Their thought process is "so, what cool shit can we spend taxpayer money on that we couldn't normally get?". Now, I have no problem with a large or metropolitan police force buying a few surplus M-4s (even though, as police, they have access to better, new weapons for the same price), comm gear, or load-bearing harnesses to equip their SWAT team. But the average beat cop on traffic duty doesn't need a surplus M-4 sitting in his trunk. And they don't need a mine resistant vehicle. And if a major police force doesn't need one, a county sheriff certainly doesn't. I don't think you need an MRAP to do a raid on a methlab, or operate speed traps on that road where you randomly drop the speed limit 20mph so you can get ticket revenue to pay for your toys. If you are really concerned about officer safety in SWAT situations then buy one of these.

I remember once, about 3 years ago, I was officiating a high school football game on theoutskirts of a major metro area. On the sidelines were a couple local sheriff deputies watching the game and (I am assuming) working security for the game. One of them had to be a good 280lbs (and not muscle) loaded out in a tactical vest and harness, gloves, and sunglasses. He just wanted to look bad-ass (but looked like an idiot).

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

This is the most relevant point:

the US is safer now than ever before.

And not just a little. FAR safer. Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

The only "increasing" violence is news-media propaganda. Because chicks hatching on the farm does not sell news.

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses. (But even so, and even though they are splashed all over the news, THOSE are way down, too, compared to 2-3 decades ago.)

American does not have "increasing" internal violence. It has decreasing violence.

And during the same period, it is interesting to not, per-capita gun ownership in the U.S. has gone steadily up. And also during that same period, concealed-carry laws have become much more common.

Statistics do not prove cause-and-effect. But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

[Sources: U.S. DOJ, and for more recent years: U.S. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics]

Re:War of government against people?

[mythosaz]

I'm pro-gun (or at least anti gun restriction), but it's hardly indisputable disproof.

Guns may be contributing to violent crime; other factors may just be having a greater impact the other way.

It's not my personal belief, but the logic just isn't there for your "indisputable" fact.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Well, I certainly agree with most of your points (I normally do) but have to debate one particular omission from yours and GPs comments. Violence by Police departments has escalated drastically in the same time as criminal violence has gone down. Police brutality is close to a daily occurrence today, and not just the cops manhandling a suspected felon but outright killing people.

Sure, some of this happened in the past but not to the extremes we are seeing today.

This has a potentially rubber banding effect on society. Oppressed people surely don't take the same chances as a "Free" public, bottled up it becomes rather explosive.

When police are increasingly violent I have more concerns about them receiving this type of equipment. They surely don't need an MRAP for stopping people speeding on the freeway, so why have this type of gear?

Since this is not a new phenomenon (militarizing police that is) I have done a bit of homework. The first reason for them to gear up this way is that DHS is selling us back equipment that the military purchased for Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a boost to the MIC, and a nice way to double tax us for the same equipment. Yes, DHS sells them for less money but still are selling them to local police. The next reason is obviously a Rambo effect, where cops think they are "cool" in this type of gear. Lastly, and more of a concern than the two previous is that a majority of police training today is geared toward attacking the public. There have been ample leaks from DHS training materials showing this to be true. Military and Law Enforcement agencies are using material claiming that "Patriots" and "Tea Party" type groups are potential terrorists.

There are many good links to find in this page here, pay special attention to the retired Marine Colonel in the 2nd video. Enjoy.

Re:War of government against people?

[fche]

Not just that. A key quote from TFA: "My job is to make sure my employees go home safe." Police leadership whose priority is on their own safety is more likely to view the populace as a problem instead of as the recipient of service. They are more likely to do no-knock night-time raids ... because if it saves just one [police] life, sure it's worth burning that baby with a flash-bang.

Re:War of government against people?

[dala1]

A negative correlation does not disprove causation any more than a positive one proves it. To see why, consider a simpler example: Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day.

Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime. It could be that poverty rates went up due to recession, resulting in more crime and prompting politicians to increase police funding. It could be that the police are corrupt or inept, or that legislation changed such that committing crime is more profitable or less risky. There could be any number of explanations for that data that don't require causation.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses.

Nobody ever said guns lead to mass shootings, they are the means. You dont need fully automatic assault weapons, you just want them in fact no mass shooting has every been prevented by a private citizen who was coincidentally carrying an assault weapon and happened upon a mass shooter. Yes the NRA likes this fantasy and idiots buy into it to justify feeling like a big man carrying a big gun! And everybody likes to feel that if they had a big gun then they could stop anybody else that had a big gun.

More to the point is the ignorance of the part of the constitution regarding the "well regulated militia", but you dont want regulation and there is no well regulated militia at all. Same old braindead hicks only want to obey the bits of the constitution they like. And with the corruption of Congress and the overreach of the NSA why do these people still do nothing about it? The whole point is to have the ability to overthrow an oppressive government and it is pretty damn oppressive right now.

Which leads to another retarded issue with the 2nd amendment: You're a complete fucking idiot if you think your well regulated militia (which you ignore anyway) armed with assault weapons is any match for the government's military-spec hardware. Just another stupid attempt to justify your want for guns, saying you need them in case you have to take on the military is just another example of the inbred idiocy of some of the US population.

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

I'm pro-gun (or at least anti gun restriction), but it's hardly indisputable disproof.

Yes, it is. Leaving guns aside, it's the way logic and statistics work together.

A correlation (we see lots of accidents involving cell phones, for example) does not imply cause-and-effect. There is often some outside factor (or even many factors) that influence the things correlated. A classic example, from Darrell Huff's "How To Lie With Statistics" is: the salary of Protestant ministers in the U.S. is strongly correlated with price of rum in Jamaica.

Does one cause the other? Of course not. The more likely answer is that general inflation (an outside factor) has affected both of them similarly.

But while a correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, a lack of correlation -- or more properly, a negative correlation -- can DISprove cause-and-effect. Example: something -- all evidence points to one animal -- has been killing your chickens. You suspect the neighbor's dog. So you start keeping tabs on when the dog is let out, and when it is in the house. It turns out, after examination, that whatever it is has been killing your chickens when the dog was locked up in the house. There is no dispute... it is indisputable that the dog wasn't there when the chickens died. This negative correlation between the dog being out and dead chickens has DISproved your theory that the dog was killing the chickens.

It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds. If your theory is that X causes Y, and you find a negative correlation, for example X goes up while Y goes down, you have DISproved that X causes Y. Otherwise, barring other outside influences, you would have (no dispute) observed that Y went up as X went up. Anything else contradicts your theory.

And in the gun-control debate, we have in fact had ample time and opportunity to control for other factors. And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation. Yet even so, as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up, Y (violent crime of all sorts) has continued to go down. Therefore: X does not cause Y. Q.E.D.

There has been only ONE societal factor that has been found to satisfactorily correlate with the reduction in crime (see the movie Freakonomics, and that has been widely disputed.

Lacking any other evidence of outside factors, and even allowing for the one that (maybe) was found, we are still left with the simple mathematical fact that in the U.S., prevalence of gun ownership DOES NOT cause crime.

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where the USA gets it WRONG.

Its the attitude which is the problem, not the gun.

In the USA it is acceptable to buy a gun with the intent to use it to kill someone (self defence, stand your ground, what ever you call it)
and the large number of hand guns posed for this purpose makes the attitude clear, " It is OK to kill people"

Other countries who have large numbers of guns dont have this attitude, in fact if authorities even think you want a gun for "self defence" you will be denied ownership and the use of a gun "for self defence" can see you charged with murder/man slaughter, because the idea of killing another human being is considered abhorrent .

Hence in these countries gun crime is lower, murder rates are lower and mass murder is pretty much unheard of.

The US population is paranoid, delusional, and frightened.
Freedom is not expressed by ones ability of own a gun and be able to shoot someone (in defence or what ever),
it is not needing one, knowing you are safe with your family, neighbours, fellow citizens.

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

Your logic is also impeccable!

I would love to hear someone dispute this with logic. That I would know how to deal with. No one does that. They only dispute it with emotion, and with blind assertion, and refuse to believe it, but they can give me no rational reason to follow them.

Now sometimes it's more concrete. Sometimes you know the crackhead idiot down the road has wanted nothing more than to beat you to death with a blunt object for over a year, but will never get the stones up to try it, solely because he knows your family are gun people and he figures there's a good chance that you kill him if he tries. Sometimes, you know. The rest of the time, you dont know, but either way, it helps society in general, by lowering the crime rate, without doing anything, simply as an intimidation factor.

You see it even more clearly in the crime statistics when you break it down by type of crime and area. Rural areas have major economic problems that can definitely see some crime. But in areas where the typical household has what our pseudoliberal press would describe as an 'armory' the types of crimes committed are different. You see very few crimes that risk confrontation. People will sneak in and rob you when they are sure you are gone, but home invasions, muggings, etc are still unheard of. Old Grandad sleeping with a 12 gauge full of 00 next to his bed is not something the typical criminal wants to take any risks of dealing with.

Re:War of government against people?

[knightghost]

Therefore strict gun laws = fewer mass shootings, not no mass shootings.

No. Canada has a massive welfare system funded by their natural resource exploitation. They provide for mental health. The USA doesn't. There are a multitude of other cultural factors such as Canada being formed for Safety while the USA was formed for Opportunity, etc etc.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

Ready access to guns may not suppress violent crime but ratcheting up the gun laws certainly seems to do nothing to stem the tide. Assuming that gun laws are a reactionary, knee-jerk response to high levels of gun crime, the results don't seem very promising.

Perhaps something else is actually going on and fixating on guns is an easy way to avoid solving the real problem which is really hard and will make liberal busybodies squirm.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoploss]

It's a crime what they pay police officers. They practically guarantee corruption.

I agree, but for the opposite reason you purport. In my locale, we have cops retiring on full pension in their 40's. Furthermore, until a few years ago, the cops were all "spiking" their pensions so they were pulling down $100+k/year pensions (pension pay was based on the last 18 months of income better retirement, and they all loaded up on scads of overtime during their leadup to retirement). Actuarially, they are going to live another 30+ years while drawing these $100+k/year pensions. Of course, they will immediately launch into a second career after retiring in their 40's, so their income is actually the full pension plus their new career.

That's certainly a "living wage" *cough*.

The fire and police unions are driving my city into a race to the bottom. We are half a billion dollars in the hole for the pension fund thanks to these people.

The problem is that the police/fire unions have served as "kingmakers" for the mayoral elections for the past few decades. It's no wonder their contracts have gotten "recommended" enhancements by the mayors. We finally broke the back of the union kingmakers in last year's election... a candidate they opposed won, on a platform that included bringing the unions to heel. Hopefully we can claw back the criminal amounts we are paying these people.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same anonymous coward, but you're wrong, and apparently your professors and textbooks are wrong too (or more likely, you misunderstood them).

Simple thought experiment: Suppose crime is going down at rate x due to some social factor, and going up at rate y due to more guns. If x > y then crime is going down as number of guns goes up.

Different topic, but you are the batshit craziest poster on Slashdot. It's clear there's no conspiracy theory too stupid for you to embrace. The thought that you are also a gun lover frightens me. I suspect that there are legitimate mental health reasons that you should never own a gun.

Re:War of government against people?

[wagnerrp]

Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day. Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime.

Ahem... I hate to have to tell you this, but yes it did. The simple fact is: you had greater police presence, but crime went up. Your hypothesis has been disproved.

In an uncontrolled study, it disproves nothing. The data could be a result of gun proliferation reducing crime. The data could just as well be a result of gun proliferation increasing crime, only for those crime levels to be affected more strongly downwards by some other independent cause. You can't simply plot a bunch of statistics and call it a day. You have to exhaustively search through a large enough data set to definitively isolate that single variable amongst all others.

If you find "stop, drop, and roll" ineffective while someone is pouring gasoline on you, you haven't disproven the technique, you're merely found one situation in which other factors are overriding it.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

There is nothing wrong with the attitude.

There should be a place that a man and his family don't have to retreat from. This what makes you a man rather than a peasant. This is what makes you something other than property.

The idea that you aren't allowed to defend your family is what is really abhorent here.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It is entirely possible to have a scenario where some factor is driving crime down faster than gun ownership is driving it up. The fact that it hasn't been found is about as important to this discussion as the continuing problems reconciling quantum gravity with general relativity is important to launching a rocket to the moon. (Hint, it isn't)

2. The fact that Northern Europe has less gun ownership and less crime than the USA implies that this factor that drives crime more than gun ownership does in fact exist.

3. By your logic, you have also solved NP != P. I mean, try as we might, we haven't found ANY P-time solutions for an NP problem, and we've had ample time to find one, so that's good enough for a rigorous proof right? No?

Oh, and btw, Mr. I've Taken Lots of Logic and Statistic classes, an appeal to authority? Really? Good lord.

Re: War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Self defense is a human right (see Locke). Any government that tries to take that right away from you needs to be removed from power.

Re:War of government against people?

[Hategrin]

According to this Ad Absurdum logic, dropping sand-bags in an at-risk hurricane zone actually causes the hurricane. Ever see hurricanes hit where NOBODY is getting prepared? No? Well, there you go, responding to a hurricane caused that hurricane, just like responding to a flux in gun violence caused that flux in gun violence.

PS: I don't advocate the removal of any of our constitutional rights, just the abandonment of shitty logic. Don't look so surprised, of course your regurgitated politically rhetoric is going to contain a dozen logical fallacies, it was drummed up to incite argument, not to dig into the root causes, that might *ghasp* bring closure to the argument and no politician wants that.

Re:War of government against people?

[cgriffiths]

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

Your post is opinion, there's some pseudo-science within your post but ultimately it is a biased opinion. By following your statistical analysis above by considering only two factors: rise in gun ownership and falling violent crime figures, you are coming to a very short sighted conclusion. There are many other arguments out there which could have been a larger contributing factor than more gun ownership such as outreach programs, changes in judicial sentencing, changes in public perception to specific factors of violent crime, heck even the BBC published an article on how removing lead from petroleum/gasoline in our cars has a strong correlation with reduced figures in violent crime.

I'm not educated enough in social policy to comment on what changes in society would have had an impact on violent crime levels but you can't state that guns do not cause crime from the figures mentioned previously. Causation of crime comes in many forms, some that we understand and some we are yet to discover. For all we know other factors may have been more influential in reducing crime during that period than the impact of guns in circulation on increasing crime.

You also have to consider that many crimes wouldn't exist or wouldn't be so accessible if it weren't for gun ownership such as school shootings [1] , armed robberies [2] and homicide [3] .

I'm neither pro- nor anti- gun ownership, I live in a country without firearms and that's fine by me. I do see merit in firearm ownership when regulated properly to the extent where any person who has taken a test in firearm safety, is of a stable mind and hasn't committed a violent crime [4] in the last 5-10 years can own a firearm but this I will tolerate only with strong regulation.

---

[1] How else would you go on a rampage in schools or other buildings? Sure you could use a knife, sword, axe or whatever else you choose but ultimately your attack range is gonna be a lot less allowing a lot more people to escape unharmed and a lot easier for people to overpower you if they so dare.
[2] I mean armed in the sense of being with a firearm. A quarter of robberies of commercial premises in the U.S. are committed with guns. Fatalities are three times as likely in robberies committed with guns than where other, or no, weapons are used.
[3] In the U.S. in 2011, 67% of homicide victims were killed by a gun. There is little doubt that many of these victims would have been murdered if there no were no guns about since those who have the intention to do so and have planned it will do it without firearms. However having ready access to a gun for an enraged, unstable individual wanting to harm another because of a form of dispute is definitely going to have an impact on crimes which weren't planned.
[4] Obviously murders, attempted murders, brutal assaults and the like will prevent them ever owning a firearm and the time frame can be varied depending on the severity of the crime.

Re:War of government against people?

[TubeSteak]

Well, I certainly agree with most of your points (I normally do) but have to debate one particular omission from yours and GPs comments. Violence by Police departments has escalated drastically in the same time as criminal violence has gone down. Police brutality is close to a daily occurrence today, and not just the cops manhandling a suspected felon but outright killing people.

I would question this conclusion.
I'm inclined to think that the police have always been brutal, the only difference now is increased reporting (and video recording).
As a point in case, the proliferation of cell phone video has led to a proliferation of lawsuits against police who have confiscated phones or arrested the videographer.

It's something of a society wide problem, where in the past we didn't have a grasp on the extent of many problems, either from willful blindness or unintentional ignorance.

Re:War of government against people?

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

So just a counterpoint of logic:

Hypothesis: A increasing leads to B increasing.
Measured: A increases, B does not.
Revised hypothesis: A therefore does not lead to B increasing, since there is a negative correlation.
Reality: A increasing leads to B increasing, C increasing leads to B decreasing. During the measured period, A increases and C increases. If the effect of C increasing exceeds the effect of A increasing, then B decreases.
Result: By not measuring or accounting for C, the measured results appear to be a negative correlation between A and B.

The difficulty in a scenario like gun control is in the elimination of outside influences in the study. Unless all of the influences are accounted for, then negative correlation can mean that there is no causal relationship, or it can mean that the causal relationship is being overwhelmed by some other factor. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re:War of government against people?

[vux984]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment,

RTFA. They don't need it. They KNOW they don't need it. They freely agreed they'd prefer a smaller, lighter, more practical civilian police vehicle like a BearCat but that costs $200,000 to $300,000. That 55,000 lb MRAP listing north of $700,000 only cost them a measly $5000 as army surplus.

Hell, even a police issue dodge ram, with typical law enforcement upgrades is going to cost an order of magnitude more than $5000.

OTOH, although they got the MRAP for $5k, its going to be a beast on gas, and god help them if or when they need to replace any parts on it.

I guess if they actually need something even lightly armored, if this thing runs for a year or three and they can turn around and sell it for 55,000 pounds of scrap metal after that they probably actually saved the taxpayers some money vs operating something else.

The news here isn't that the police are looking to arm themselves with military gear, its that they are on tight budgets and military surplus is overkill specs, but is a lot cheaper than suitable civilian gear.

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

I honestly think gun ownership is a secondary, in some cases almost extraneous factor.

In regards to Europe, Scandinavia (where I have lived) actually has a higher rate of firearm ownership than the US. Yet very little violence. And why? It's cultural.

The US is home to the most violent at least of the more developed cultures on earth, if not absolutely. We have been at war constantly since WWII. We have set ourselves up unilaterally as the world policeman, and we are constantly bombarded with propaganda to justify it. The ultimate result of that is a constant increase in militarism, and in the fundamentally mistaken belief that violence is the proper and appropriate way to sole problems of all sorts. And that in turn means that we will have high and climbing rates of violent crime regardless of material circumstance.

Take away all the guns and all you will do is disadvantage the older people and empower the young thugs with knives and blunt objects. Reverse the underlying rot, and violence will decline, even if every person in the country were issued an 'assault rifle.'

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

That's true... North-americans have the most violent culture I've ever seen. Violent sports (american footbal, basketball, ice hockey) violent schools (bullies can do whatever they want and the victims is that they are penalized if they react) and a way of thinking and acting violent where others around never have rights. And the thing that bothers me most is that my peers do not seem to care even a little to copy this culture within my country...

Re:War of government against people?

[CodeBuster]

One argument against registration is that we cannot be sure how those records will be used by the government or who might obtain or misuse them in the future. We have already seen some media outlets publish names and addresses of gun owners and types of guns owned from information that probably shouldn't have been publicly available. A very handy tool for convicted felons looking to steal a gun, among other potential abuses. However, even that's just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what future governments might do with this information or whom they might expose it to? Giving information to the government is dangerous because it gives governments or their allies the ability to control others through threats to publish the information, or selective publication of the information or blackmail or any number of other nefarious uses. We have already seen with our phone and email records that the government cannot abstain from mischief. Why should we trust them with a registry of every gun owner in America?

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

take out the 5 most left-wing anti-gun cities and we around the 5-10 safest countries in the world.

Ahh.. Mexico. Where private gun ownership is forbidden.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

if you are operating a vehicle on private property, you don't need a permission slip.

licensed jobs.. people. doctors, engineers. We could have a great argument here on /. about barriers to entry, but licenses for those positions have nothing to do with a license for a person to own a piece of property. engineers and electricians are licensed though boards, usually at the state level, and the standards are set by others in that profession. it isn't a permission slip to own a device.

your car analogy was closest. the people analogy, other than the word "license", has nothing to do with this topic.

and then you resort to this stupid meme, so as to belittle me for my position.

your position boils down to "everything should be under the state. and i should decide what people can have." like a little bitch.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

While I agree with you this is corruption, if the choice is between a union that moves government money into the pockets of at least some citizens vs. a lobby group that moves government money into the pockets of the 0.01% then I'd rather have the former.

Keep watching and check where the new candidate moves the money to.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

The problem is that the USA has dug itself deep into a hole and getting out is hard.

Once you have guns in the population, stricter gun control laws lead to a shift of the existing stockpile towards criminals, which probably results in higher crime. Basically: The criminals still have all the guns they used to, while the citizen don't.

Gun control laws don't work short-term. They only work long-term, if you manage to actually remove the existing guns from the population.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

Watching this thread of the three of you talking about logic is one of the most painful things I've ever seen on Slashdot.

Yes, the logic is fine, but the fundamental premises being used as starting points are not.

Jane Q Public uses a very simplified example of a dog, and uses that simplified example to try and justify her jumping to a conclusion in a far more complex scenario when the two have absolutely no relationship whatsoever. It's about as valid a logical argument as saying my username is Xest, which is true, thus it must also be true that guns increase crime. Obviously that's completely fucking stupid. She washed away the whole basis of the discussion with "It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds." which is completely not logic. It's an affront to logical argument.

Runaway1956 used the premise "Time and again, when cities and states make gun laws stricter, crime increases. And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern. The idea that there's any kind of consistency in the evidence that more gun ownership results in less crime is completely and utterly false.

Now you hold this up as an example of impeccable logic, you accuse others of debating only with emotion. Guess what you're doing? Guess why you were willing to turn a blind eye to these blatant gaping holes in their arguments? Because you're not interested in logic, you're interested in emotion.

Throwing up words like logic and coming to potentially incorrect conclusions because of flawed foundations to an argument doesn't suddenly make the argument logical. Realistically there are far too many factors to ever reach a genuine logical conclusion as to the impact of guns, if you're pretending otherwise like you three have then you're simply full of shit.

It's an emotional debate because there's always scope for doubt in any evidence that can be introduced into the discussion. If there was a simple demonstrable way to prove one way or the other the effect of guns then the debate would be over, but no such thing exists, or likely ever can exist. So talking about armouries deterring confrontational crime and the like is just equally meaningless bollocks, especially given we've seen the exact same decrease in the UK of confrontational crimes but instead correlating with less guns.

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

Macho bullshit. The best way to protect your family is to be a pragmatist. If someone points a gun at you or your family it's best to just co-operate and wait for them to go away. Your stuff can be replaced, lives cannot be. The statistics are quite clear. In cases where two people are armed and pointing weapons at each other one usually ends up being shot, in cases where only one is armed both usually live.

Most criminals don't want to murder innocent people. Aside from anything it draws a lot more heat from the cops than a simple robbery. By drawing your own weapon you turn a situation where they just want to get away quickly into one where they want to kill you first.

Of course, the most pragmatic thing to do is live somewhere where most criminals are not armed, but the US is locked into an arms race now so I'm afraid you are screwed.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, the negative correlation is not airtight disproof of the claim that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime. However, it puts the burden of proof on those who are making the claim that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime...and that proof needs to be more than "Well, this could be causing the decrease."

Face recognition, Armored vehicles, Phone spies

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States of America is a war zone, the government is at war with its citizens.

$5k

[reanjr]

For five grand, I'd be tempted to buy one, too.

Re:$5k

[Daniel_Staal]

This. The sheriff said he'd rather have a more police-oriented armored vehicle for his SWAT team, but they cost $300,000, and this only cost $5,000. It's bigger, slower, and uses more gas, but it's cheaper overall. He's working within a budget and it's budget-effective.

The rest is window dressing and statements to appease the press.

Re:What about escalation?

[olsmeister]

"Wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone."

SHeriff Michael Gayer

[geekoid]

needs to go to a war zone for a few months.

Violence has been trending down for decades. This dumb ass just get a hard on with driving around in the military vehicle.

Plus he is in Johnson county doing Sheriff duties. Not anything close to a war zone. Using a few stories from the news to claim America is a war zone is so fucking stupid this guy should be fired. Clearly he can not do basic statistics within his field. Someone anyone making purchasing decision should be able to do.
Tell me what crime you deal with the requires this?
http://www.jocosheriff.org/ind...

AND it's going to be more expensive to maintain, and the police should never use military anything, ever. They are NOT the military. Too many people are loosing touch with what the difference is.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Why SHOULDN'T civilian organizations make use of military surplus when it is available? It saves them money and makes use of existing stuff instead of having to >>build new. So what if they aren't the military? I've got a couple of old field jackets, should I not use them because I'm not the military, even though they are good, >>>rugged, serviceable pieces of clothing.

Well hell, why do we even need a civilian police force? Why not just use military personal to police the civilian population? It would save money by using existing personel that are no longer needed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

violent crime has plunged

[SuperBanana]

"There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that's what I'm going to do."

Uh, yeah, except violent (and property) crime has fallen to levels we haven't seen in 50 years (police-involved shootings, however, have gone up - in part, I'm sure, because of all the war vets getting preferential hiring in police jobs.)

This reminds me of the firefighters in our city. Fires have become extremely rare, thanks to better standards/code for electrics, building, appliances, etc...as well as education, etc.

Instead of laying off firefighters, they started sending them out to respond to medical calls. So we have giant ladder trucks responding to grandma saying her chest hurts, instead of spending that operating expenditure on ambulances that can respond quicker, or, say, pivoting the "fleet" towards much smaller, faster SUVs that carry high-tech equipment. Everyone thinks they're still really busy fighting fires. Win-win, except for citizens, screwed by both unnecessary expenditure and ineffective utilization of budget...

How Many

[overshoot]

police (deputies, etc.) over the past five years have been attacked with IEDs?

Alternately, how would something like this have helped the cops in Las Vegas this weekend?

War on terrorism

[manu0601]

This is the war on terrorism logic. Even the cops are afraid and see military grade enemies everywhere now.

This is bullshit

[Rigel47]

> "The United States of America has become a war zone," he said. "There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract.

You are no longer an officer of the peace.

You are a new armed wing, a great example of the militarization of the American police force. As part part of the Deep State you see yourself as being on one side with the quarrelsome public and their whining on the other.

Violent crime in the US is at a multi-decade low.. and yet you seek tanks to patrol the streets of US cities.

It is any wonder that people freak when the DHS tries to buy 3 billion bullets?

Military industrial complex

[rsilvergun]

Yep, it's a by product of the military industrial complex that's been propping up our economy since the end of WWII. Since we couldn't have socialism we just built lots of army vehicles. And that means lots of surplus and a heavily militarized police force. I don't think anyone really planned it, it's just one of the twisted distortions from our way of keeping the economy going...

Re:What about escalation?

[SuricouRaven]

I still do not approve of that move.

Sure, everyone knew Capone was guilty. But the police couldn't prove it in court (largely due to Capone's effective witness intimidation and bribery campaigns). The correct response to this situation should be to gather evidence of the alleged crimes until they could successfully prosecute. Instead someone decided to go on a fishing expidition. It was an underhanded trick, to first decide someone needed to be convicted and then go looking for a crime to convict them of.

People approve of that case because it was used to lock up a real crime lord - but it's exactly the same legal trick that can be used to silence political opponents, break up protest groups and imprison activists. First decide someone must be eliminated, then look for a law they have violated. There are so many laws, everyone has violated some of them - there is no longer any such thing as a law-abiding person.

welcome to the war zone

[potpie]

Any place becomes a war zone when you march an army through it.