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Privately Owned Armored Trucks Raise Eyebrows After Dallas Attack
HughPickens.com writes: Manny Fernandez writes in the NY Times that the scores of military and police-style vans, trucks and cars offered for sale on Craigslist and eBay have raised concerns for some law enforcement officials, particularly after the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. Officials say the vehicles appear to be legal for the most part, so there is little they can do. Jeff Funicello, for example, is selling his black 1975 GMC armored truck on Craigslist. The body is armored, and the windows are bulletproof. It has sliding portholes to point rifles from and a sprinkler system inside. Long ago, it transported money, and it was once the target of a shootout in the 1980s. Of course, people have been driving reinforced cars long before the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. But the celebrities and executives who install bulletproof windows and other types of armor on their vehicles often do not want it noticed. Celebrity clients generally demand that the exteriors of their luxury armored vehicles look normal so they blend in. However those who buy and sell armored vans want people to look. And the popularity of apocalyptic movies and television shows has put a new twist and added a macabre cachet to such vehicles "This is America," says Funicello. "I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one. If I wanted to buy a fire truck, I could."
who needs enemies when we have swat teams to "protect us" from shoplifters by destroying our homes. http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/swa...
so can you blame people for wanting to protect themselves?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A pretty typical response. Focus on some trivial or unimportant aspect of a bad event, rather than face the fact that little can be done. Does anyone really believe that "doing something" about armored cars is going to prevent future attacks? The attacks will just take a different form. It is like saying "hammers raise eyebrows after person is attacked with a hammer" The least important and and least valuable aspect of that description is the hammer.
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No one should own a bulldozer because it is almost a tank. Or cutting and welding equipment because you could armor a vehicle.
Passionately Indifferent
No the shame is that most Americans don't believe that social consequences are their problem. This is why your society looks more and more like a toilet every day.
Your society has a murder rate 5 or more times that of major first world countries. And you think YOU are the ones who are free?
And yet I've never heard of a howitzer being used in commission of a crime.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And you fail to see the need for weapons/armored vehicles. Dumbass!
I know ownership of weapons in America is a highly contentious topic so I fully expect to get modded down aggressively for this post. I want to try out the argument anyway. Please humour me.
Let us imagine two different countries: Macroland and Microland. The governments of the two countries are mostly similar, with two notable exceptions.
The government of Macroland punishes resistance to its rule heavily. It jails approximately 0.7% of its population. Its enforcement troops kill about 60 of its own people each month.
The government of Microland is dramatically less aggressive. It jails only 0.1% of its population, but more importantly, it virtually never kills its own citizens no matter what they did or how strongly they resist the government's rule. It took Microland about a quarter of a century to kill as many people as Macroland did in just one month.
Which country has the most oppressed people? Microland or Macroland?
I think most reasonable people would say that the citizens of the country that kills them the most often are the most heavily oppressed. After all, what's the basic power that lies behind abusive government oppression? What's the basic mechanism governments use to remove people's freedoms? It's violence. The country that dishes out the most against its own people would seem to be the most oppressive.
You have, of course, already figured out that the statistics given above are real. Macroland is the USA. Microland is (just for comparison) the United Kingdom.
Americans have the US Constitution and it is a mighty document. The Constitution has always been a vital part of protecting the freedoms of ordinary Americans from overreach by government. Yet the Constitution is flawed in one terribly dramatic way. By allowing and even encouraging a heavily armed society, it fails to strike any blows for freedom - as police have always had and always will have better access to top grade weaponry and armour. The chances of ordinary US citizens successfully mounting an armed uprising against the government is zero. And yet it simultaneously gives those same police a cast iron excuse for arming themselves to the teeth, as they are expected to enforce the law against an exceptionally dangerous population.
The result is that whilst Americans and British people have very little differences in their levels of freedom, they have enormous differences in their chances of being executed by their own governments ..... or by random mental patients.
I am British and I would like to see the UK adopt a US-style constitution. But not if it included a copy of the second amendment. Real data from today's world seems to suggest it makes no real difference to freedom but does make the world a vastly more dangerous place.
You're like a drunk with a hangover who thinks the solution to it is just to drink more.
It is legal to own a howitzer or a bazooka in the US. The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.
You can also own a fighter plane and or a bomber.
You can own a tank in the UK as well.
If you ever go to an airshow odds are you will see people flying fighters and bombers that they own.
It sounds really dumb but frankly I just do not see people using any of these to commit crimes.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It's the same logic one could apply to any First Amendment issue, or coding for that matter: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
The intent of the United States of America was to protect and value the freedom of the individual over and above the good of society.
Nowadays it seems people here in the "home of the brave" are fearful and lazy. So they would rather society protect them instead of having to be responsible for themselves.
The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.... It sounds really dumb but frankly I just do not see people using any of these to commit crimes.
Gee, I wonder if one of those has anything to do with the other.
Hey, while we're on this logical path, make all guns legal, for anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Just regulate the bullets.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
We have many things wrong in this country. Corruption, excessive government spending, a military machine that gets involved in things we should not, and many relationships with countries we should not support. Most of our crime is gang related violence. They don't follow laws and have guns. Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
Well... If you live on Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), you really will want (and need) a armored car.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
The vehicle would be registered and taxed based on its weight and displacement, so any damage to the road should be covered under the cost of the road fund license (commonly called vehicle tax or road tax), which is set by the DVLA.
If the vehicle is driven with its road track blocks installed (rubber blocks that go on the tracks) then in theory it should have a lower pavement weight than a similarly heavy lorry, as the vehicles weight has a greater footprint, and thus lowers the stress on the road.
You say the same crap that's been used to justify weapons stockpiles for decades. How much government tyranny is it going to take for you guys to start actually defending all our/your freedoms? With all the crap the NSA, TSA, FBI, and all the other three letter agencies do, you'd think we'd have had a civil war long ago. You guys keep on saying you need your guns to protect from government tyranny and yet it increases day by day.
"American's quite simply will not tolerate infringements." What a joke! Apparently even heavily armed Americans will tolerate infringements as long as they get to buy guns and spout right wing bullshit all over the airwaves and internet.
When is this revolt of your's going to happen?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And the only people with raised eyebrows are the ones that contract private transportation, much of it with "enhanced safety" and specially trained drivers.
It's like some dickwad whining about people having guns yet has armed guards on the payroll.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Or East LA. Or the wrong side of Boston, Houston, Miami, or most other big cities. You don't have to leave the USA to find third world countries.
Remove minorities from the statistics and you will find that the US violent crime rate is in line with the least violent nations in Europe.
Guns have nothing to do with it, or the Swiss would be awash in blood. Rather, what we need to do is focus on economic advancement of the underclasses, which are disproportionately populated by minorities (for whatever reason). And you aren't going to get there with welfare. That has been tried, and all it does is breed generation after generation of permanent cripples (see the state of Indian tribes on and off the reservations--those on reservation receive generous welfare payments, and are poor, while those off the reservation have to make their own way, and are largely successful and independent).
If you want to have a social safety net, then fine, put in a basic income, which has been shown not to have a negative impact on people's willingness to work. But when you have a system that punishes people with less welfare money, or a total cut when you go to get a job, and punishes those who work even a little with greatly increased amounts of reporting and paperwork, well, you get what we have today.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Much more importantly, my rights are not subject to revocation due to other peoples' fear.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
In these uncertain times, you can't be too careful. We should all be driving armored vehicles, like the Marauder. Top Gear did a wonderful review of the vehicle, showing how practical the Marauder is for normal city driving.
Review part 1
Review part 2
The wide majority of gun crime in the US is committed with guns that the person using them has no right to posses.
Roof used a gun to shoot 9 black people in SC recently. He was under felony charges for drug crimes and was not legally able to own a gun. How will more gun control laws stop him from getting a gun?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?