Who here would rather see MRAPs rusting in DRMO lots?
Who here would rather see MRAPs rusting in DRMO lots?
#RESIST
I'd rather see 'em auctioned off publicly.
(You know that PD's aren't going to use all of them and that a metric buttload are going to wind up turned into razor blades or given to future enemies. But suggest letting some reenactor buy one and recoup at least a fraction of the taxpayers' investment, and the SWPLs would fill their trousers.)
I had a hard time finding it because the link was at Vice. I guess someone whose Twitter feed I follow linked it. Maybe BearingArms or Insty?
I understood the idea of the armored car but thought that they were rarely used. When I started Goggling, I found a bunch of uses. A lot seemed to suggest that the armored vehicle allowed a lot more restraint by the responding officers as they took fire from frequently mentally disturbed suspects.
This really striking me as one of those - "Sure, it works in practice but how does it work in theory?" kinda issues.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
I knew someone who might be alive today if they'd had a way to roll up behind armor on the disturbed individual blasting out the windows of a suburban Atlanta home with a deer rifle some 25 years ago.
Or left in Iraq so that they could now be in the hands of ISIS.
I think MRAP's will end up being like a free ink-jet printer for most agencies. It seems like a good deal until an agency has to start paying repair cost.
A couple months ago, we had a suicidal subject that was holding a pistol to his head, in a car in the parking lot of an elementary school. Our SWAT team happened to be doing training nearby and was on scene with two armored vehicles in less than 10 minutes. The APC's were parked between the subject and the school. Over the next 30 minutes 4 more APC's arrived from other agencies and the subject was boxed in tight, the school was safely evacuated and the situation was resolved in about 6 hours with barely a blip on the media's radar and no one hurt. Without the APC's I don't see many outcomes to that situation that didn't involve the suicidal subject getting shot.
I find it amazing how people didn't care about police weaponry in the aftermath of the North Hollywood shootout.
For all the ink written about armed cops, I'm fascinated at the lack of attention being paid to the militarization of the criminal element.
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.