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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.
Per the Second Amendment, we all have the right to keep and bear arms. So, why are they only giving these to police? I'd like at least a token weapon (like a single pistol or rifle) for my share of taxes, that went to research, develop, and produce them...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And why did they give our local PD 145 flashlights worth $130K? What does a thousand-dollar flashlight even /look/ like?
... 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.
I'd like to know what kind of Flashlights Santa Clara, CA received at $900 each. ($130K for 145 of them).
They received a utility truck worth $47K - if they put just 53 of their flashlights in the back of the truck, they'd be worth more than the truck itself.
What makes these flashlights worth $900?
Yes, but why would they want to arm their enemy.
Captcha: treaty
As far as i know it was 1961 when the city of Ft. Lauderdale got the first police tank. It was in fear of the dreaded college students on Ft. Lauderdale beach on spring break. It was stored underneath the local public swimming pool. It featured such things as tear gas sprays and rubber bullets. But the heavy, tracked vehicle was a threat as our beach road was normally covered with students. We had as many as 500,000 at one time. About 1962 colleges started to stagger their spring breaks to avoid crowding at resort areas and the FT. Lauderdale police and officials were ugly enough to cause less kids to come to Ft. Lauderdale anyway. And yes, kids really were assaulted for no reason by over worked cops. I was there and saw it first hand. Oh Lord save us from the hordes of scholars descending upon us.
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.
Who can beat their 120+ line items of largess in a town with less than 5000 people? The Florence Facebook photos page is to die for. It took me 5 minutes to recover. Looks like a total LE staff around 12. (including the dog). I want pictures of Florence Cops on Mules!
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.
Why would you? Those 1st graders are already crying....
Probably they wanted a larger vehicle able to hold a fair number of offices with some cross country ability. Getting something from the military is significantly cheaper than buying something built for that purpose. It may not be perfect but it is good value.
Because the police are the ones out and about in the small hours of the morning. If you are outside for sustained periods it doesn't need to be below freezing to be unpleasent enough to reduce your effectiveness.
Those who ignore history are bound to... LOOK, A TERRORIST!!!!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.