Boston FBI head: Police need assault rifles in case of terror attack

Source: Boston Globe

The top FBI agent in Boston said today that the Menino administration should revive a controversial plan to arm neighborhood officers with semiautomatic assault rifles, saying the scarcity of such weapons on the force makes Boston more vulnerable to a terrorist attack similar to the 2008 rampage in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people.

Warren T. Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Boston, said other big cities in the United States have made such weapons widely available to specially trained police officers and that the issue "should be revisited sooner rather than later" in Boston.

"There's no imminent threats," Bamford said in a meeting with Globe editors and reporters. But, he continued, "All things being equal, if a terrorist decides, 'OK, we're going to do something like what took place in Mumbai,' well, where would you go? If you have a choice of a metropolitan city, would I go to New York, with 40,000 police officers, would I go Los Angeles, with 8,000, or would I go to Boston, with 3,500 ... and I know there's no assault rifles in the Boston Police Department?"

Bamford said he had spoken with Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis about the plan to distribute assault rifles but not with Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/08/boston_fbi_head.html

:scared:

they are thuggish as it is... this is more like imposing a military police state. This Bostonian says, no thanks!

In France the Army is used to protect sensitive places (stations, airports...)

If a policeman isn't present in the patrol (which is often the case) they can arrest a suspect but they have the duty to turn him over to the police immediately. They don't have the right to shoot, unless in self-defense or on order of a policeman.

American students there, of whom I knew a few, quickly learned to avoid the Gendarmerie Nationale as much as possible, because they would routinely search any American they could find, steal their cigarettes, money and condoms, and then hit on their girlfriends. Search and seizure laws are suspended when the GN suspects a crime is in progress. Apparently in France, being an American is a crime in progress--and who can really blame them?

Being an American in America will be a crime in progress if our own search and seizure laws are further relaxed. So too will being black, being politically active, being outraged, and being afraid.

So I think we should let the French hold onto that idea for a while yet.

I won't even argue against that kind of shit, it's meaningless with people like you. Condoms ? Man, you have a problem. Probably erectile. Anyway you give a good description how many US cops behave, widely documented.

PS for those who are not aware of that : the Gendarmerie Nationale is mostly working with trafic control. They have a military formation and are relatively well paid. Why they should steal condoms is a mystery. And at least they dont taze grandmas.

Do you deny that the GN can stop and search anyone they please if they think a crime is in progress? Because that's the important part of what I said. You can dismiss the anecdotal stories I heard, but it was those stories which made me want to learn more about French search and seizure laws.

Guess where George Bush learned about extraordinary rendition and torture, with identical results.

I may be a little miffed, but I'm not gonna let this one go. I have something else to say.

The United States of America owes its very existence to France. It was France who won the American Revolution for us, by combining its navy with the Spanish and the Dutch and forcing Britain to call things off. Never would have happened without them.

And for that, we ignored France when they went through their own revolution--until it looked like we had a chance to steal some of Canada, and got our butts kicked for it.

France donated some of its best minds to the United States. There are at least a dozen Members of Congress in our history who were born French. Every good idea France had in the past 150 years that the United States actually tried turned out to be a great idea.

France went to the mat for the free world twice in the 20th Century, and suffered enormously to do it. The United States lost 300,000 boys in the Great War, killed and wounded; France lost 4 million. The French suffered more people killed altogether in World War II, as well.

But there is a difference between France and the United States, a big difference, and one the people on my side of the pond don't wish to acknowledge. When the French people get pissed off, they tear their damned government down and start over. France is working on, what? The Sixth Republic, now?

The United States, on the other hand, got away with one revolution, tried and failed a few more times, fought a nasty civil war, and then turned its attention to assassinating Presidents and stealing elections as a way to change things--or more accurately, not change things. We are politically ignorant, indifferent, and corrupt all the way down to the collection plates in church.

Now it may be that guys can walk around in military uniform, with powerful weapons, and they can be trusted to do their jobs and not take advantage of their positions of power and authority. Maybe, thanks to their ability to trade in a government when it gets out of line, they actually trust their law enforcement.

Not here. No fucking way would I give that kind of authority to an American cop, or an American soldier. Because if I did, I'd be the first against the wall the next morning.

So there, I hope that clarifies my opinion somewhat, and I'm sorry I ruffled your feathers.

steal the condoms because they want to lord power over you. It's like when your big brother steals your baseball cap. He doesn't care about the hat. It doesn't fit his big, stupid head. Why does he steal it? Because he can.
Why do the guys with the assault rifles steal things? Because they can. It's basic bully mentality that people that do the job have. It's why they get the job. Because they want power over people.

after all these weirdo cases of cops gone wild.

Has it?

military base, I can tell you that the last thing you want are assault weapons in the hands of anyone who has any reason what-so-ever to be disgruntled.
More over... most people in law enforcement are of a highly Conservative/republican viewpoint and are angry/fearful.
I'll leave it to you to do the math.

A 20-year-old off-duty sheriff's deputy and jilted lover opened fire on his former girlfriend and five of her friends early yesterday, leaving the six dead and wounding a seventh in Crandon, Wis. The victims were at the ex-girlfriend's house for a homecoming party, and were a close group of high school friends, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Yesterday afternoon the shooter, Tyler Peterson, was also reported dead after law enforcement officers located him in a town 8 miles away from Crandon, the police chief said: "The subject is deceased and is no longer a threat to the public." The mayor said Peterson had been brought down by a sniper, but authorities declined to confirm that. A local man who knew the killer said he "was a good kid...just a normal kid and they were all real good friends."

USED HIS AR-15 A4

http://www.newser.com/story/9022/wisconsin-cop-kills-6-in-shooting-spree.html

We really don't need faster weapons in the hands of reactive people.

They fire once and only once when the trigger is pulled, i.e. at exactly the same rate as the Boston PD's current carbines.

If you're talking about NFA Title 2 restricted M16's, that may be a different story. I think this is talking about civilian AR-15's, though.

Ah yes, the great Cartoon Network Invasion of Boston. Ranks right up there with the Battle of Bunker Hill

fuckin idjits.

edit: spelling, ain't I the dumbfuck.

sooner or later one of these nuts cases is going to do something. How many cops have been killed this year? How many were multiple deaths, for one incident? Do you think you could stand them off with a sling shot then go ahead.

Helping mobsters avoid getting caught.

millions of rabid beavers parachuting from c130s built of logs
sentient vegetables with teeth overrunning supermarkets 'shopping' for human victuals
spontaneous vulcanization of the sewers
the disappearance of gravity
get out of boston while you can

in lieu of the traditional pump shotgun or the currently issued (AFAIK) Ruger mini-14. They fire the exact same ammunition at the same rate (only one shot when the trigger is pulled, no automatic capability), but the AR-15 is considerably more accurate than the mini-14 is.

Police departments across the country have been gradually replacing their shotguns with small-caliber, non-automatic rifles like AR-15's or demilled M16's for well over a decade. The rifles are far more precise than shotguns, pose less risk to bystanders from richochet, and are easier for small-statured officers to shoot due to the very light recoil.

The only reason the Boston shift is noteworthy (after all, departments all over the country have been equipping small-caliber rifles for years) is that the Boston PD thought it necessary to roll out the "Terrah!" meme for PR reasons. But were it not for that, and for the overheated rhetoric about modern-looking civilian rifles that is endemic in recent Massachusetts politics, this move would rate about three column inches on page B-4 of the local paper.

FWIW, the civilian AR-15 is the most popular centerfire target rifle and civilian defensive carbine in America; it is hardly some fringe supergun. It's a centerfire .22, for pete's sake.

civilians are prohibited from possessing semi-automatic firearms (handguns and longarms), that are capable of accepting magazines greater than 10 rounds capacity (hi-cap mags are banned as well).

Ergo... the Boston police department should be prohibited from possessing them as well.

As a Massachusetts resident that commutes into Boston, this news truly scares me. For a city, Boston is very safe and the thought of the police carrying around semiautomatic weapons is frightening and conjures up visions of East Germany. I could understand MAYBE having a small cache of weapons available for highly and specifically trained officers in a centralized location but available to the neighborhood cops? That is just totally unacceptable.

People forget that the favorite place for Dillinger (and other criminals of the early 1930s) to get firearms was to rob Police stations or National Guard Armories. The armories were only a distant second to Police Stations, primarily do to the fact their only held Bolt action Rifles and Browning Machine guns (NOT M1918 BARs, which only came into use at the end of WWI so most National Guard units did NOT have them, but many Police departments did). Even today robbing a National Guard Armory is not worth it, the bolts are generally kept some place else (Generally the nearest full time Police Station) so getting the M-16s is a waste of time unless you rob the Armory at the time the bolts are present, and that is when the troops are present, not a good choice).

Anyway, AR-15s in local Police Stations (So the Police can obtain them quickly) also makes them easy for criminals to get (i.e. Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde etc). No, the security needed to make such weapons secure from someone like Dillinger would also make the weapons almost impossible for the Police to obtain quickly. Better off leaving such weapons to the National Guard who can be activated at the same time the weapons are freed up.

Police should NOT try to stop an armed rebellion. Police should and can contain crime, contain riots and other outbreaks, but a terror attack like what happened in India (and lets remember Moscow under Yeltsin) are better handled by Troops NOT the police. It will take the Troops 2-3 days to get ready to suppress the terror attack but it will be crushed (as what happened in India and Moscow).

Now, I did a quick check on the net and the reports say Clyde's BAR was stolen National Guard Property, but the Government NEVER asked for them to be returned so I question that fact (Stolen property remains the legal property of the person it was stolen from, thus if Clyde's BAR were National Guard the BARs were the property of some state or the Federal Government and should have been returned to one or the other).

On the other hand there was one report that said Clyde's BAR was a Colt Monitor version i.e. a Police NOT military version of the BAR. This was also the same version of the BAR used by the Police Officers in the Final Ambush of Bonnie and Clyde. If Clyde's BAR was taken from a Police Department then only that police department would have the right to demand the weapons return. Unlike the Federal Government and the States most small town and rural Police Departments do NOT have lawyers on staff to file actions in court to demand their property back. Larger cities would have such lawyers but be embarrassed that the weapons were taken from them.

Thus my opinion, and it is only my opinion, that the BARs used by Bonnie and Clyde and their gangs were taken from Police Departments not the National Guard, but further research is needed on this issue (While it was legal for civilians to buy BARs at that time, Colt did NOT sell them to anyone but the Police and the Military so no one says these BARs were stolen from Private Civilians or even robs from them).

Dillinger clearly robbed Police stations for weapons including Automatic Weapons (He preferred m1921 Thompson Sub Machine Guns):
http://www.awesomestories.com/flicks/public-enemies/dillinger-the-bank-robber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dillinger#Formative_years_and_marriage
http://www.kpcnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4529:Dillinger-is-said-to-have-lived-heyday-in-northeast-Indiana&catid=174:features&Itemid=151

In his infamous prison escape he took two Thompsons out of the prison with him (Page 201 of the following book):
http://books.google.com/books?id=9E1t-2ER7QcC&pg=PA387&lpg=PA387&dq=dillinger+weapons&source=bl&ots=gUS15jUzpO&sig=91e9a5hE1RZqK17Nla2D7vBoF4w&hl=en&ei=DNqMSvKmONDRlAe_z_WnDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=dillinger%20weapons&f=false

from that tiny dick asshole in Phoenix at the Obama Town Hall... :hide:

Can you say, "bat-shit crazy, paranoid mother fuckers, children."

a pump action 12 gage and the SWAT and Red Dog squads have carried semiautomatic rifles for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

10 officers and 7 civilians were injured because all the police had were shotguns and pistols. The bandits had fully automatic assault rifles and full body armor so the police were massively outgunned. Well into the shootout the police went to a local gun store and borrowed M-16's.

I went to the bank afterward and on the wall where one of the bandits had been standing there was a semi-circle of dozens of bullet holes from police pistol shots about 10' x 15'. There was no effect on the bandit when he stood there.

I think the assault weapons are now kept in Sergeants cars.

By the time people are aware of an attack, these days, seems it's too late to do anything about it. How will spending more money on guns just as useless as the current crop help? Eff 'em. They just want cooler looking toys to play with.