Why do cops need APC's and machine guns? Those darn veterans

[Balog]

http://fox59.com/2014/05/12/armed-for-war-local-police-tote-pentagon-surplus/#axzz31isc0kux

“When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,” said Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department. “The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.”

You know us vets, all crazy and IED'ing cops left and right... 

“At the end of the day, it gives the guys the ability to go home safely,” said Downing,

The lie of "officer safety" has done as much to desecrate the Constitution as the Wars on Everything and Interstate Commerce Clause abuse.

[RevDisk]

*shrug*

Anti-gunners make the same argument. Gun owners are violent and blah blah blah. If gun owners, or veterans, were as dangerous as portrayed, there would be no opposition left.

[T.O.M.]

Our County SWAT team recently got an up-armored HUMVEE.  I ran into one of the team sergeants, and asked why they got it.  His answer, I think, was really the most honest on this issue..."It was free in one of the surplus programs, and it's really cool."  I'd bet this explains 90% of the armored vehicles in LEO possession.

[RevDisk]

Our County SWAT team recently got an up-armored HUMVEE.  I ran into one of the team sergeants, and asked why they got it.  His answer, I think, was really the most honest on this issue..."It was free in one of the surplus programs, and it's really cool."  I'd bet this explains 90% of the armored vehicles in LEO possession.

Ayep. I just home more County SWAT teams get surplus toys, a lot of them, can't maintain them or buy new tires or whatnot, and then resell them on the open market. Yanno, what SHOULD have been done in the first place. Departments could probably self-fund by laundering milsurp.

[fifth_column]

Our County SWAT team recently got an up-armored HUMVEE.  I ran into one of the team sergeants, and asked why they got it.  His answer, I think, was really the most honest on this issue..."It was free in one of the surplus programs, and it's really cool."  I'd bet this explains 90% of the armored vehicles in LEO possession.

QFT

They get to play with all this cool stuff, and don't have to deploy to an actual war zone to do it.  And they get paid for it!

Now if only I could trust .gov employees to resist that heady, adrenaline-fueled sensation of imposing their will upon the populace . . .

[cordex]

Ayep. I just home more County SWAT teams get surplus toys, a lot of them, can't maintain them or buy new tires or whatnot, and then resell them on the open market. Yanno, what SHOULD have been done in the first place. Departments could probably self-fund by laundering milsurp.

Usually these sorts of things are covered by indefinite lease type agreements.  Can't resell 'em.

[KD5NRH]

You know us vets, all crazy and IED'ing cops left and right...

Any need for police to have full auto weapons is completely fabricated and grossly irresponsible.  In recreational shooting, backstops can be carefully constructed and verified as adequate.  In war, anything beyond the intended target is extremely likely to be either another target of opportunity or at least acceptable as collateral damage.  Neither of these applies in an urban law enforcement situation.

[Balog]

Any need for police to have full auto weapons is completely fabricated and grossly irresponsible.  In recreational shooting, backstops can be carefully constructed and verified as adequate.  In war, anything beyond the intended target is extremely likely to be either another target of opportunity or at least acceptable as collateral damage.  Neither of these applies in an urban law enforcement situation.

Suppressive fire should not be a part of the law enforcement repertoire.

[Scout26]

Our County SWAT team recently got an up-armored HUMVEE.  I ran into one of the team sergeants, and asked why they got it.  His answer, I think, was really the most honest on this issue..."It was free in one of the surplus programs, and it's really cool."  I'd bet this explains 90% of the armored vehicles in LEO possession.

Yes, but when they have these "toys" there's always the urge to go out and play with them. 


Nothing like seeing your up-armored HWMMV, MRAP or APC on the evening nooz with all the tacticool cops around it. 

[KD5NRH]

Suppressive fire should not be a part of the law enforcement repertoire.

Not in the normal sense of the term, no.  I could see a benefit to, say, dumping a couple rounds into the engine compartment to keep the guys hiding behind the car from popping up while you're moving to better cover, (though given the Buick O' Truth results, trying for a shoot through where you think they are would make more sense if the backstop is even remotely reasonable) but not just hosing with full auto.

[vaskidmark]

Had a "special investigative report" by the local TV station on the new-to-them MWRAP Caroline County Va just announced & showed off.  Sheriff was all puffed up and proud about the fact that "it did not cost the taxpayers one red cent" to obtain, and that after using drug asset forfiture funds to pay for getting it to the county several local establishments donated time & material to refurbish it from the totally stripped and trashed condition it was in when they got it.

For some strange reason no mention was made, by the Sheriff or the TV investigative reporters, of how much it is going to cost to house and feed the beast. (Needs its own cave, all sorts of new tools & spare parts, and eats more gas per mile than the whole rest of the cruiser fleet.)  But it was "free!"  How many drug busts will it take to maintain it?

http://www.nbc12.com/category/235050/nbc12-investigates for the video.  They said they had a statewide list of goodies obtained by the cops, but that seems to have disappeared.

stay safe.

[T.O.M.]

skid, that reminds me of when I was an advisor to the sheriff's department, and they had applied to get a surplus UH-1.  No pilots, no facilities, no maintenance personnel, but they thought it was a great idea because it would be free.  We talked them out of it once the costs were spelled out...

[Firethorn]

For some strange reason no mention was made, by the Sheriff or the TV investigative reporters, of how much it is going to cost to house and feed the beast. (Needs its own cave, all sorts of new tools & spare parts, and eats more gas per mile than the whole rest of the cruiser fleet.)  But it was "free!"  How many drug busts will it take to maintain it?

Ideally you'd never use it for 'drug busts'.  You'd use it for the once a decade or so bomb threat/hostage situation.  Something immune to rifle fire and resistant to shrapnel can occasionally be handy.

Other than that you run it around the block once a month to verify operation. 

[KD5NRH]

Ideally you'd never use it for 'drug busts'.  You'd use it for the once a decade or so bomb threat/hostage situation.  Something immune to rifle fire and resistant to shrapnel can occasionally be handy.

Actually, once a decade is about right for my little town of 17,000.  If city and county have access, I could see it being handy as a show of overwhelming force when they get the annual DV where the drunk assailant has holed up with a rusty SKS and a statement that he ain't goin' to jail.

For that matter, about once every 3-4 years, they get a pursuit where some redneck decides to ram his truck through a few cruisers to avoid the spike strips.  Been waiting for the day a helpful trucker just happens to get his 50' heavy duty flatbed trailer stuck across the 2 lane road while that's coming up.  It might be interesting to see what happens when an F150 going whatever the rev limiter will allow tries to pinball off a stationary MRAP.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Suppressive fire should not be a part of the law enforcement repertoire.

Frighteningly enough, there actually was one such instance here in Portland a couple years back.

We had a crazy guy with a hunting rifle in the second story above his garage barricaded in his house.  It had originally come in as "my husband is acting all sorts of crazy, i don't know what's wrong, we need help".  First responding officer got out of his car couple houses down, starts to walk towards the house, and nutjob shoots him as he's walking down the street.  Officer is able to crawl behind a retaining wall to get some cover/concealment, radios he's been shot, hit in the leg if I remember correctly.  Of course, now the whole world is descending on the location.  One of the responding officers is a SWAT (well, Portland calls it SERT for Special Emergency Response Team or some such) officer, and has his M4 in his cruiser.   He manages to get across from the house in question without getting hit (he was shot at a couple of times).  Garage is open (bad guy is in room over the garage) and there's a concrete foundation wall about two feet tall all around the garage.  Once the rescue plan for the wounded officer was set up, he started dumping mags full auto into the concrete wall in the garage.  This kept nutjob's head down long enough for them to rescue the wounded officer.

Once all that was done, they called in the negotiator who after a couple-four hours talked the nutjob into surrendering.

[lee n. field]

Ideally you'd never use it for 'drug busts'.  You'd use it for the once a decade or so bomb threat/hostage situation.  Something immune to rifle fire and resistant to shrapnel can occasionally be handy.

Other than that you run it around the block once a month to verify operation. 

Trot it out once per year for Memorial Day or July 4th parade.

[tokugawa]

", plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.”

 So where does a Police Official come up with the idea that modern vets are dangerous wacko's?  I don't think the idea just popped into his head. I think this line is being sold by DHS etc.  A Psywar guy might call it battlespace preparation.
 And it is not isolated- middle class white males are being portrayed daily by the left as the main cause of every ill in the world. This goes double if they are gun owners or Christians.
 Sometimes it is enough to make me wish I could take back, for a week, everything white men have contributed to society-you know, dumb useless stuff like the automobile, polio vaccine, cell phones, modern plumbing, antibiotics and anesthesia, etc.
 People are so damned spoiled the literally do not have a clue as to how high a standard of living they have, due  to those nasty icky white males.

[Bigjake]

*shrug*

Anti-gunners make the same argument. Gun owners are violent and blah blah blah. If gun owners, or veterans, were as dangerous as portrayed, there would be no opposition left.

What he said.

And if they keep pushing that line of BS,  it'll become a self fulfilling prophesy.

[seeker_two]

Never understood why the cops got the armored vehicles. If any group of first-responders needs them, it's the fire & ambulance crews working the inner city.

On a separate note, how long until Hollywood remakes FIRST BLOOD?.....

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[Scout26]

Never understood why the cops got the armored vehicles. If any group of first-responders needs them, it's the fire & ambulance crews working the inner city.

On a separate note, how long until Hollywood remakes FIRST BLOOD?.....

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

And that's where the pyscho-vet cop killer came from.  We're all just ticking time bombs, waiting to kill all the cops in a small town.   

Thanks again Hollyweird.

[RevDisk]

I have noticed a repeated theme in movies and TV shows to show veterans as mentally unstable and violent. I'm kinda curious if it's just laziness on the part of the writers, or because it is a stereotype that the culture that makes said movies/shows actually believes. I suspect both.

[KD5NRH]

Once the rescue plan for the wounded officer was set up, he started dumping mags full auto into the concrete wall in the garage.  This kept nutjob's head down long enough for them to rescue the wounded officer.

So, IOW, this could have been done more safely and just as effectively with blanks, (no need to pop up to aim at the wall) and probably even better without FA, since the BG wouldn't have really cared if the shots were at full cyclic rate or not.  Firing 1-2/second would make the mags last a lot longer, while still not giving the BG time to pop up and take a shot.

Really, in a situation like this, 37-40mm gas grenades sound like a much better plan.  Put a couple through the window and he's at least not going to be aiming worth a crap for a while.

I have noticed a repeated theme in movies and TV shows to show veterans as mentally unstable and violent.

That's pretty much how most of the really effective people are portrayed, veteran or not.

[Balog]

I have noticed a repeated theme in movies and TV shows to show veterans as mentally unstable and violent. I'm kinda curious if it's just laziness on the part of the writers, or because it is a stereotype that the culture that makes said movies/shows actually believes. I suspect both.

In all tv writing I think lazy stereotypes are a staple. But those stereotypes originate in the culture so...

Six of one, half dozen the other.

[TommyGunn]

So, IOW, this could have been done more safely and just as effectively with blanks, (no need to pop up to aim at the wall) and probably even better without FA, since the BG wouldn't have really cared if the shots were at full cyclic rate or not.  Firing 1-2/second would make the mags last a lot longer, while still not giving the BG time to pop up and take a shot.

Really, in a situation like this, 37-40mm gas grenades sound like a much better plan.  Put a couple through the window and he's at least not going to be aiming worth a crap for a while.

That's pretty much how most of the really effective people are portrayed, veteran or not.

Firing with blanks requirs a restrictor in the barrel to cycle the weapon.  These have to be removed in order to fire live ammo.  This might not be so  ... "convenient" in a SHTF situation.  In addition the perp might realize there were no bullet strikes.

No problem with full auto or semi auto ....I doubt it would make much difference, and less so if there was more than one officer firing.
Gas grenade sounds viable unless there's someone inside with asthma or other respiratory problems.

[dogmush]

Gas grenade sounds viable unless there's someone inside with asthma or other respiratory problems.

Don't forget, Gas grenades seem to have a tendency to burn down whatever building they are fired into.