Sadly I think the militarization of our police is meant to deal more with civil unrest than these situations.

And civil unrest to one person may be fear of others while it may be expression of a right to life for others (like BLM).

yet it's difficult to argue that it didn't "come in handy" when dealing with active shooters.

and they expect mass migration of people and lots of civil unrest. I believe that that is the why. The report read like a doomsday novel and I took notice. I look at Syria and our response to taking in any refuges and wonder if it will be any different when areas start to flood on our coasts and people try to migrate inland.

Walker is reading that all wrong in my opinion.

Maybe it is just me but I am horrified that the police apparently fired more than 350 times at these guys. No it does not make me feel the least bit better that they have all that heavy gear in fact it makes me feel worse. I would much rather they trained better with their weapons so that they didn't have to spray lead all over the place to take down two people. It is even worse when they were heavily armored and still had to fire that many times.

This whole "militarization" of everything in sight, but esp. our police, is disgusting,
out-of-place, and runs counter to everything civil society is supposed to be about.

No argument there.

it enabled them to evacuate people while they were still chasing the gunman. They drove it right through a wall into the building.

...of a local ABC station, from their news helicopter. Honestly I thought they looked ridiculous, inching forward in that special vehicle with an armor shield on the front of it, as if they were going to be facing fire from several armed shooters. Did they really think anyone was still alive in a vehicle that looked like it had at least 100 bullets fired into it? The person speaking from the helicopter said several times that there had been no motion from within the SUV. (He also noticed right away, when they got the body from the back seat, that this one looked like a female -- which was verified later in a presser.)

The first thought that occurred to me watching all this was, okay, they will use this to justify their use of armored vehicles.

Whatever happened to the 'good old days" of cops & robbers shoot-outs,
sans military hardware?

Color me nostalgic.

...from beginning to end, while it was playing out on the police scanners.

One of the cops involved in the shootout said that a suspect in the back seat was still breathing and had an "AR strapped to his chest." That's why they stayed so far away from the SUV and why they eventually brought in the armored vehicle.

TYY

...don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the hundreds of rounds fired into the vehicle, shattering every window in it (except the windshield, which merely had a bunch of bullet holes in it) -- would have set off the booby trap? Or would have caused any ordnance in the vehicle to explode?

Well I'm no expert, and I do not object to law enforcement using caution. But that specialized armored vehicle creeping forward just looked silly to me.

They do have robots nowadays to deal with bombs, so humans are not put at risk. Maybe they should have brought one of those along with the armored vehicles.

Law enforcement is so wrong, so much of the time. If we cannot acknowledge when they do something right then we have crossed the line of illogical thinking.

... in the SWAT team riding on the outside of the armored vehicle. Not that I want to suggest that the purpose is theatre, or anything...

-- Mal

The police need military grade armor and gear to protect themselves against that.

Sorry gun humpers but you can't decry militarized police while stockpiling military weapons.

making us all just a little less free every week.

Not with events like these. There are too many nutcases with too big of arsenals at their disposal--that's where my concern is directed. Not how it "looks" when police and SWAT show up. I'll bet Colorado Springs victims in the PP building were pretty fucking glad the CSPD had a Bearcat to punch holes in the building and rescue them.

given to simplistic thinking or simple solutions.

I have strong feelings on BOTH sides of this one.

that is the universal philosophy nowadays. That's ok in war, but NOT in our neighborhoods in "the homeland"

I hope not, they are overwhelmingly being lauded as heroes. If any elected Democrat ever publicly uttered anything close to such a sentiment, it would be electoral suicide even in some of the bluest areas of the country.

Moreover, police don't "shoot to kill," they shoot to stop, and in unquestionably dangerous situations the safety of innocents and law enforcement always supersedes escaping suspects, and that's without concerns such as IED's and booby traps.

As to the OP. those who favor increased supply of local law enforcement with military surplus gear and other militarization of local police couldn't have asked for better visuals to support their cause than police fighting terrorists in San Bernadino with such equipment.

Fear is a great way of controlling people. However, I'm not sure that the police intend for us to fear their Bearcats and APCs.

Mostly they want them for the occasional high-risk task.

All the rest boils down to optics (which, again, is mostly fear rooted in suspicion) and the very serious question about misuse.

Most of the misuse is also fear: If there's a protest and the APC's called out, it's viewed as police intimidation and threat.

There's a cop on duty where I work. I walk past her every once in a while; she walks down the hall where my "place" is every once in a while. Some students are intimidated; some are fearful; some basically ignore her, and others greet her like they would anybody else.

Her reaction is pretty consistent: She's paid to be there, smiles at nearly everybody, and is pretty much bored out of her mind because she's really there for doing something she's needed for for perhaps 2, 3 hours a week. And that's in a bad week.

killers bent on causing mass casualties to create political change or because they are nuckin futs.

We live in a nation where almost any weapon short of a tank is available. The police must arm for the conflict they find themselves in.

No, really?

I must go to the wrongbones, just pistols, rifkes, shitgubs, beef jerky, and overpriced ammo.


Damn. Must have walked right past the machineguns, grenades, c4, claymores, rocket launchers, pipe bombs and all those other tank destroying weapons . it's not fair, dammit. Gun grabbers are always telling me these gun shows are a regular bakarra market full of crazy shit. They must have bought it all before I got there. Typical gun grabbers..

You snooze, you lose.

and some people own them. However, the paperwork for such a purchase is quite onerous, and the cost outrageous.

Considering our rate of tank-related crime is 0, I don't believe there's much impetus to change the current regulations.

Gunz is going to saves us from gub'mint tyrrany. I've been assured of this fact my many on DU.