Repeater
Regular Member
Say, why can't we, the people, have any of this?
Police or soldiers? Agencies locally and across Virginia have weapons of war
Do we really want cops to become heavily-armed soldiers? What rationale could possible justify this? Well, see here:
What a crock of ...
As I recall, Charles Whitman was pinned down by local citizens with hunting rifles until some cops could get up there behind Whitman and shoot him dead. As for the North Hollywood incident, I think some local gun shops helped out.
Get this, the VSP refused all FOIA requests. So, have they gone dark?
Virginia State Police refuses to disclose publicly funded weapons and vehicles
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
In any case, check out the databases compiled by the Times-Dispatch. Do we have a Standing Army?
Police or soldiers? Agencies locally and across Virginia have weapons of war
Armored personnel carriers with gun ports, compact submachine guns with 30-round magazines, precision battlefield sniper rifles, and military-grade assault-style rifles and carbines have become standard gear in the arsenals of Richmond-area police departments.
Across other parts of Virginia, law enforcement agencies in 105 localities — including 10 in central Virginia — have received as military surplus more than 2,800 tactical firearms, vehicles and other instruments of war without cost from the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Just looking at it, I would say it’s a bit frightening,” John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group, said of what he describes as the emerging American police state. “I don’t know what the reason for it is. Crime is at a 40-year low, murder rates are drastically down.
“I live in Charlottesville and the police tell me there’s no crime, but they’re armed to the teeth.
Whitehead also decries the military-style appearance that police forces sometimes display, with officers in combat fatigues, helmets and boots, sometimes aboard armored vehicles more commonly seen in war zones.
Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, says there is virtually no civilian oversight of the sophisticated tactical weapons that local police departments are acquiring, either through regular budget purchases or free surplus from the federal government.
“We think it’s extraordinarily important that police understand that, to the extent that they’re going to become military organizations, that civilian oversight even becomes more important,” she said. “Just as our American military has the oversight of the Defense Department and Congress, so should our local law enforcement agencies that are now local militaries.”
She added, “The community should have a role in what weapons they have, how they are going to police, what they’re going to use those weapons for and how well trained they are.”
Do we really want cops to become heavily-armed soldiers? What rationale could possible justify this? Well, see here:
Police point to what they consider to be game-changing shooting incidents over the past 50 years that they say influenced law enforcement tactics and armaments.
They said SWAT units began to proliferate in the late 1960s and early 1970s after the tower shootings at the University of Texas in Austin, where a student and former Marine randomly killed 11 people while perched from the 28th-floor observation deck.
Another defining event occurred in North Hollywood, Calif., in 1997, when two bank robbers clad in body armor engaged Los Angeles police with illegally modified, fully automatic assault rifles with high-capacity drum magazines in the street. Patrol officers were outgunned, carrying only 9 mm or .38-caliber handguns and 12-gauge shotguns.
Eleven police officers and seven civilians were wounded and numerous vehicles and property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the police and robbers, who eventually were killed.
In subsequent years, many departments across the country began acquiring military-style patrol rifles and boosting their firepower.
What a crock of ...
As I recall, Charles Whitman was pinned down by local citizens with hunting rifles until some cops could get up there behind Whitman and shoot him dead. As for the North Hollywood incident, I think some local gun shops helped out.
Get this, the VSP refused all FOIA requests. So, have they gone dark?
Virginia State Police refuses to disclose publicly funded weapons and vehicles
The Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the Virginia Coalition of Open Government questioned why state police would not release basic descriptions of their taxpayer-funded firearms stock and equipment.
“Transparency in government is the basis of democratic freedom,” said John W. Whitehead, a constitutional lawyer and president of the Rutherford Institute. “If the American public is paying for it, and we’re supposedly the masters, then the servants should tell us what they have if we need to know.”
State police twice denied Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch seeking complete inventories of the department’s weapons and armored vehicles. The agency provided a partial list that included handguns, shotguns and several vehicles, but denied all the rest, citing a FOIA exemption that allows discretionary release of “specific tactical plans,” which the newspaper did not request.
...
In the second denial letter, state police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty said disclosing the requested information “would pose a potential threat to the safety of our officers and the public” by allowing others to assess the department’s capabilities.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
In any case, check out the databases compiled by the Times-Dispatch. Do we have a Standing Army?