In another thread, someone did a good job of breaking down the many questions we've been discussing. I thought that it might be useful to address them in a separate thread. I thought I'd start here.
Whenever some discusses the so-called "militarization" of police, a common gripe is that police are carrying rifles and specifically AR-15 or M-16 pattern guns. This completely baffles me as most of the people complaining about it are strong second amendment supporting types.I think this whole debate gets muddled because we're really talking about a bunch of points at once:
1) The appropriate gear and weaponry for cops.
To me, if I can go and purchase it as a citizen, then there is nothing wrong with me carrying it on duty. As long as we are willing to allow most anyone to buy an AR in Walmart, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the police to be able to counter that threat. One of the best ways to counter that threat to at least allow police to have the same weapon they are facing. Giving the officers the ability to counter these threats also goes a long way to stopping calls to ban assault weapons to "protect the police."
Another baffling concern I hear is that the rifles are coming from military surplus programs. These programs allow agencies to get the proper equipment for the threats they face without any additional burden on local tax payers. The rifles have already been paid for by the taxpayers once, how is recycling equipment and saving money a bad thing?
The concerns about rifles in the hands of police also seemed to be driven by a lot of ignorance. Folks seem to think that the police having rifles is some new trend when it is not. Rifles have been in the hands of police since modern police forces have existed. When police faced the motor bandits in the 1930's, they didn't fight them with just revolvers and pistols. The police used submachine guns (Thompsons), semi-automatic rifles (Remington Model 8's), and fully automatic rifles (BARs) to counter the threat. During the civil unrest of the late 60's and 70's there are plenty of pictures of officers with M-1 carbines.
Another point that shows the levels of ignorance involved in these debates are the claims that "high powered" military rifles are being used by the police. Hopefully, everyone on this board recognizes that the M-4 fires an intermediate cartridge. The reason the 223 is seen in the hands of the police is the cartridge is less powerful than 308's and more suited for urban environments because the rounds break up more quickly than anything else out there.
While I kinda understand the weaponry issues, I am completely baffled by the objections to armored cars (Bearcats) and MRAPs. The only reason to use these vehicles is to protect officers from incoming fire and to rescue people trapped in the open. The need for such vehicles has been demonstrated on numerous instances included the use of a commandeered armored car during the North Hollywood shootout. None of these vehicles have any offensive capabilities, they don't have cannons or machine guns, they don't shoot anything. The only thing they bring to the table is a significant defensive ability. There aren't' a whole lot of options for rescuing folks trapped in the open, if you object to armored vehicless are you OK with the police using large volumes of suppressing fire to effect a rescue?
(Speaking of armor, I don't know if it's still the case but LAPD used to have the front doors of their patrol cars armored for hits up to 7.62x39. There are multiple instances of that evil armor saving officers lives. Is this a bad thing? Is it wrong to allow police to patrol in armored vehicle? Doesn't that send the wrong message to the community they police? Isn't it better to lose a couple of cops so everyone can have the warm fuzzies?)
Again, I think that law enforcement having ready access to these vehicles helps mitigate the calls for more restrictive gun control. If the police can readily handle criminals armed with magazine fed semi-automatic rifles then one of the reasons for banning them is eliminated.
It has largely been forgotten now but several years ago there was a large shootout between outlaw motorcycle gangs in Laughlin, NV. Properly handling this event required a massive law enforcement response and it included armored vehicles. A major concern was that wounded from both sides were being evacuated to the same hospital and making the hospital as safe as possible became a major concern. Part of that response was to place an armored vehicle at the entrance to Emergency Room. Nobody cared at the time but guess who's evil military surplus armored vehicle and "SWAT team" secured the hospital - it was the National Park Service. Why was the National Park Service there? Because agencies don't keep enough officers on-duty to handle major incidents - just enough to answer typical call volume. When major events happen these days, the only way to handle them is to ask for help from everyone and be really grateful for whoever responds.
While we're on the topic of appropriate gear, let's address body armor. It made internet news and caused much consternation when the US Dept of Agriculture but out a bid soliciting body armor. While it didn't blip the RADAR, there have been solicitations for not just soft body armor but rifle rated hard plates by the National Park Service. If it had been known, I'm sure that every right-wing, yellow journalist would have been gnashing their teeth about the militarization of even our beloved Park Rangers.
Why on earth would Park Ranger need rifle rated body armor? How about the release of the investigation of our most recent line of duty death. One of the recommendations was the purchase, for every officer, a set of rifle rated body armor and (the horror, the horror) helmets. Why? Because our last three line-of-duty deaths were all caused by suspects armed with rifles. So do Park Rangers really need rifle rated body armor? Probably not, unless you're that guy responding to the call in which the suspect has a rifle and isn't afraid to use it.
So do the police need rifles, armored vehicles, rifle-rate body armor and helmets? Only if we expect them to handle the real-world problems that the relative freedom our society affords us without further constraining those freedoms.
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Originally Posted by jlw
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