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Every Weapon, Armored Truck, and Plane the Pentagon Gave To Local Police
v3rgEz writes You may have heard that the image-conscious Los Angeles Unified School District chose to return the grenade launchers it received from the Defense Department's surplus equipment program. You probably have not heard about some of the more obscure beneficiaries of the Pentagon giveaway, but now you can after MuckRock got the Department of Defense to release the full database, letting anyone browse what gear their local department has received.
... to the people.
This limits what you'll sell to the police because a lot of this hardware you don't want in "civilian" hands... the police ARE civilians. They are not military.
Anything the police are able to buy, should be something the average citizen can buy.
Pistols?
Rifles?
Shotguns?
Body armor?
Tear gas?
Gas masks?
Flash bangs?
Tasers?
All of that can be sold to civilians already. No issue there.
Tanks?
Machine guns?
THAT crosses a line.
If I can't buy a tank then I don't want to see the police using them either. Both the police and the general public must operate under the same rules.
If police are getting out gunned by people that have automatic weapons, then we can look at that situation and see how that happened. From what I've seen, that mostly happens with the cartels if it happens at all. And in those cases, you're dealing with a failure of the border patrol etc. Regardless, you can bring in the FBI if you really want to bring some firepower down on their heads.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The 850$ kickback.
Mostly random stuff.
Yes, but why would they want to arm their enemy.
Captcha: treaty
>> defense of the Nation.
Our militaty has no experience in defense (which would be done on US soil.) The olny know offense. (which is done over seas)
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
The second best defense is making other people defend themselves first. It has always been that way.
The first best defense is making so that no one wants to attack you to begin with. Counter-intuitively, simply declaring yourself neutral and not picking sides doesn't do that. You still have what other people want, and if you don't keep the others on the back foot, they will be coming to take it from you.
The Swiss have defended themselves by first, being in a place no one really wants, and second, by arming every citizen. That's why their neutrality has worked.
Belgium and the Netherlands were only successful until someone with more guns decided that those two countries were useful and ran them over.
The US is currently maintaining a strategically defensive posture, just like it has been doing since the end of WWII.
There are those who believe that "defense" is pulling your troops behind your borders and waiting for people to come for you. That's understandable, but simplistic. The US could do that while the oceans were barriers and not roads. We could also do that before we were interdependent on the rest of the world for resources and trade. That ship has sailed.
APCs are useless for cops 100% of the time. By the time you get the APC out of storage etc the shooter has chewed through whoever was in range and expended as much ammo as he had or wanted. The fact that the APC can survive a shot from a Barrett isn't really helpful to the 1-10 officers and God knows how many civilians that arrived before the APC.
The APCs are way past diminishing returns if they cost as much as is reported. $1M plus mammoth upkeep costs for a PD that services 1000 people is an incredible waste. The town is never going to face a shooter where this is meaningful... but $1,000/pp in taxes is definitely meaningful.
The Swiss have defended themselves by first, being in a place no one really wants, and second, by arming every citizen. That's why their neutrality has worked.
I think the Swiss stayed neutral by keeping everyone's money for them and allowing them to make secretive transactions for arms, oil, and to hide fortunes amassed by individuals in times of war (the spoils of war). Without banks like these, you can't wage wars effectively so the banking states/havens are always safe and secure.
Still, who orders a grenade launcher for a school?
I believe grenade launchers can be used to fire canisters of tear gas.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The Republicans (many of them) are Statists, not Libertarians.
Now, the Romans and Greeks of the ancient world understood that in the immediate aftermath of a big event, poor law was made. They left us cautionary examples and quotes. Then again, nobody in politics today reads the classics and neither does the public generally.
And thus, we generate new cautionary tales.