First up, Glenn Reynolds, the guy behind the incredibly popular “Instapundit” blog has posted his USA Today column a day early where he criticizes the militarization of local police. It’s a good read. An excerpt:
Often, if you wait long enough, an idea comes around. Back in 2006, I wrote a piece for Popular Mechanics on how the federal government’s transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments — sometimes in very small towns — was leading to “SWAT overkill.”
My complaints didn’t get much traction with either the Bush or the Obama administrations. But now, in the wake of what many consider to be an overly militarized police response in Ferguson, Mo., President Obama has ordered a review of federal programs — in the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security — to arm local police with military weapons.
Lawmakers — from Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who quoted my 2006 piece in an op-ed in Time Magazine — are looking at legislation to limit transfers. This is good. There’s a role for SWAT teams in limited circumstances, but they’ve been overused in recent years, deployed for absurd things such as raids on sellers of raw milk. The problem is, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have cool military equipment, there’s a strong temptation to use it, just because, well, it’s cool. (Federal regulatory agencies have succumbed to SWAT Fever too.)
We put up a link late last week (thank you Ron B for the tip) for folks to find out what their local county governments are getting from the Department of Defense. (Story: SUNSHINE: What’s your local police getting from the Department of Defense?)
Guns Save Life’s “home county” Champaign County, IL, has received a whole bunch of AR-15s, and 7.62mm rifles, along with an MRAP – a Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicle. Basically it’s a tank with wheels.
We know our local sheriff Dan Walsh well. He’s been to a number of Guns Save Life meetings and is our kinda people.
I asked him in an email to give me his “elevator speech” on why the county needed an MRAP.
His answer, in a nutshell, was that the county’s then-current “armored” vehicle was a several decades old Brinks truck and given the price (free), an MRAP afforded the county’s SWAT team protection from prepared bad guys using rifles. He said he wasn’t sure that the old Brinks truck would protect occupants from rifle fire.
I know the deputies typically each have an AR in their squad cars for dealing with serious bad guys or active shooters, but I wasn’t ready for the number of 7.62×51 rifles Champaign County had received from the Department of Defense. I asked Walsh how many designated marksman rifles his department needed and his response was that he wanted his guys to be at least as well armed as the bad guys out there. (Apologies in advance to any female Champaign County law-enforcement division deputies out there.)
While he didn’t come out and directly answer my question if any of the firearms included belt-feds, I’m pretty sure the answer is no.
So, there you have it.
Champaign County has an MRAP.
We’ll see if everything looks like a nail to the Metro Champaign County SWAT Team now that they have the coolest hammer on the block.
While the original receipt may be ‘free’, PM on those is inherently expensive, an expense covered by the taxpayers. The problem is that local police then need to justify the continued expense by actually using those things, appropriate to the situation or not.
Sangamon County (Springfield, IL) has an MRAP too, along with a 22 +/- page list of goodies it has received from the feds. The MRAP was recently used against a man with a gun holed up in a mobile home near Riverton. According to the newspaper article, the MRAP was pulled up to the mobile home with its lights shining in the windows. The man inside surrendered at the sight of the MRAP (who wouldn’t). So there you have it. It proved effective in ending a standoff rather quickly with no one harmed. But I suspect one cop could have overtaken the bad guy the next morning as he stepped out to retrieve his paper or go for a 6 pack of beer. Wait till the tranny or other expensive part goes out on the MRAP. It will likely be pushed to the back lot and forgotten. Another new free toy from the feds will take its place.
Sheriff Neil Williamson is a good guy from what I hear.
It sounds as though your example is proof positive they should use the MRAP for daily crime-fighting as criminals will just throw up their hands and surrender when they get the lights of police authority shined on them.
Jesus H.
Sam.
From all I have heard, Sheriff Williamson is a good guy. Have met a few deputies and they all seemed to be good guys as well. My big deal, however, it the militarization of our local police agencies when good old fashioned police work will suffice in most cases. That MRAP will set in the weeds when it breaks down with an expensive repair and the 22 pages of toys from the feds sure seems to be excessive. I started looking through the list and could not continue. Too much stuff. I even wondered where it all could be stored. How much of it is not accounted for? Maybe they are like the rest of us and preparing for an attack of the zombies.
Just heard on the radio an official from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s office state that the MRAP worked so well in the Riverton mobile home incident that residents of Sangamon County will be seeing a lot more of it in the future. Oh boy – they are going to be playing army much more. Get out the night vision goggles, M-16s, an cammo outfits too. Or go see your local Army recruiter. They are looking for a few good men and women.
That would take courage, something today’s LE recruits lack. You see, if they were to actually JOIN the Army or Marines, instead of being a bunch of wannabe’s, they would be faced against either terrorist or other Militaries! Nope, easier to play Marine, then be a Marine. Especially when you are dealing with untrained civilians. Not so easy to fight against another well trained force! I know from experience as a Marine. I know that some of LE is prior military. However, still don’t think they need military gear to police civilians! This is America, not Iraq, Afganistan or Syria! At least not yet!
Did Sheriff Walsh respond with any details about those rifles… full auto, select fire, or the same semis that you and I can purchase?
I hope they’re not but if they’re auto, I would love to hear the reason why local police feel they need them.
Because they are free!
And in times of tight budgets, free is good, even if it’s excessive.
John
Free is good(I’ll take some,yeah right)until you get SWATTED over a parking ticket or something as equally mundane.
I think the police should have what ever is available. A group of untrained civilians today could be a group of ISIS jihadis tomorrow, and I don’t think telling them to disperse would work very well. Lets face it, the culture we live in today can change in a heartbeat. We had better be ready.
“A group of untrained civilians today could be a group of ISIS jihadis tomorrow”
Somehow that sounds like a really piss poor excuse to hand out military grade weapons(select fire M16’s ,M4’s,MRAP’S, choppers the list goes on).
Basically it’s a way to get the police to feel beholden to them so IF they need to call in a FAVOR they will be more apt to reply favorably.So far in linn Co. Oregon the sheriff’s dept. has refrained from taking any weapons or gear.
Richard:That was awesome.
“That would take courage, something today’s LE recruits lack. You see, if they were to actually JOIN the Army or Marines, instead of being a bunch of wannabe’s, they would be faced against either terrorist or other Militaries! Nope, easier to play Marine, then be a Marine. Especially when you are dealing with untrained civilians. Not so easy to fight against another well trained force! I know from experience as a Marine. I know that some of LE is prior military. However, still don’t think they need military gear to police civilians! This is America, not Iraq, Afganistan or Syria! At least not yet!” Nothing to add to it except it’s to bad there isn’t a like button.Once again awesome.
To the Sheriff: We’re fully aware that there’s plenty of good reasons for this type of equipment in law enforcement.
But that doesn’t change the fact that too many police forces are using this stuff more often in situations where it’s NOT appropriate than situations where it is. We trusted the police with these types of things based on the tiny percentage of the time they might actually need it, and they have regularly and massively misused that trust. So now the police need to lose their MRAP’s and 7.62 rifles. You can keep your carbines for normal patrol usage (as they’re actually safer to be using than the traditional shotguns) but other than that, you need to be demilitarized.
Whine all you want about how there are situations where you’ll need it…you should have thought of that before no-knock raids on non-violent warrants became everyday business-as-usual. You abuse stuff, you get it taken away. If you need it to do your job safely…then I suggest you don’t abuse it and get it taken away. But you have abused it, so it needs to be taken away now. You are a government entity, you have no rights, only responsibilities. You failed your responsibilities when you waged war on the people. Now the people demand you demilitarize. Obey.
“…and his response was that he wanted his guys to be at least as well armed as the bad guys out there.”
And that’s where most of the people arguing the militarization angle fall down. There is nothing wrong with that. You would want the best for our front line troops and there’s little reason to expect anything less from those task to preserve the rule of law.
Tools are tools. That doesn’t change. You can’t argue that a gun is just a tool and then turn around and point at the police with foaming mouth denying them the tools to do the job safely. Or safer, at least. The focus is wrong when you’re arguing against militarization. It always has been. Tools are still only tools. Where you you need to point the sharp, pointy end of the stick is the training and mindset, becuase just like a gun, it’s all about who is using it.
Stop beating the militarization drum already and focus on change that really matters if you’re upset with bad police behavior.
How many civilians have MRAPs? For that matter, how many bad guys have AR-15’s or M16’s?
No police department should be allowed to have the uber-SWAT goodies unless all of their cops, vehicles, and meeting rooms have 24/7/365 cameras on them.