Militarizing police is the worst way to fight crime.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/cops-with-war-toys/

A great article by Lind.

[Centurion40]

So it is the military's fault, specifically the military during the Obama administration.

All across the country, police departments are militarizing, often with weapons and vehicles bought for the armed forces for war and now declared surplus. To the cops, the equipment is free for the asking. A story in the June 9 New York Times reported that "During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment, and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft."

[LongBlade]

So it is the military's fault, specifically the military during the Obama administration.

All across the country, police departments are militarizing, often with weapons and vehicles bought for the armed forces for war and now declared surplus. To the cops, the equipment is free for the asking. A story in the June 9 New York Times reported that "During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment, and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft."

I'm not sure Obama is the only guy playing that game. There's been surplus military stuff since we started wearing it out on a large scale starting circa 2003.

[mirth]

Great article. Very well reasoned.

In terms of its effect on policing, this trend is disastrous. If the state is to keep its compact with the people, which is to maintain order and safeguard persons and property in return for cooperation, it must focus on preventing crime, not responding to it. Preventing crime in turn requires information, which police obtain by talking to citizens. Citizens are comfortable talking to police who are "Officer Friendly," the nice-guy cop on the beat whose uniform, equipment, and demeanor are unthreatening. Few people like shooting the breeze with one of Darth Vader's storm troopers.

[Steelgrave]

Along the same lines:

Rise of the Warrior Cop
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904

The Myth of Police Reform
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-myth-of-police-reform/390057/#disqus_thread

[BanzaiCat]

Great article. Very well reasoned.

In terms of its effect on policing, this trend is disastrous. If the state is to keep its compact with the people, which is to maintain order and safeguard persons and property in return for cooperation, it must focus on preventing crime, not responding to it. Preventing crime in turn requires information, which police obtain by talking to citizens. Citizens are comfortable talking to police who are "Officer Friendly," the nice-guy cop on the beat whose uniform, equipment, and demeanor are unthreatening. Few people like shooting the breeze with one of Darth Vader's storm troopers.

Preventing crime is more of a societal issue and parenting issue than a police force issue or an "Officer Friendly" issue, though.

And personally I would love to shoot the breeze with one of Darth Vader's storm troopers.

[LongBlade]

And personally I would love to shoot the breeze with one of Darth Vader's storm troopers.

Then you need to go to Origins or GenCon because they're everywhere.

Unfortunately the-site-which-must-not-be-named has broken all the links to my convention coverage images, otherwise I could post all kinds of cool pics. I've got them archived around here somewhere but it will take some serious digging to pull them up.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

The police are part of the society. They should be 90% coaching good behavior, 10% taking out the trash. The guy dreaming of pointing his gun at citizens has joined the wrong force. I think SWAT, ERT should probably be a separate force from the regular police. They are for extreme situations. If you need them as the norm, you have failed as a government. You really need to rethink how to encourage people to choose non-criminal activity. If you never think about that, as government, you should resign to go flip burgers, you are out of your depth.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

So it is the military's fault, specifically the military during the Obama administration.

All across the country, police departments are militarizing, often with weapons and vehicles bought for the armed forces for war and now declared surplus. To the cops, the equipment is free for the asking. A story in the June 9 New York Times reported that "During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment, and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft."

I seriously doubt he is blaming the military or aiming for a political point. Obama happens to be winding down wars so equipment becoming surplus naturally follows.

[LongBlade]

I seriously doubt he is blaming the military or aiming for a political point. Obama happens to be winding down wars so equipment becoming surplus naturally follows.

This, along with oceans of money being spent on "homeland security." At some point we're going to need to think better rather than spend harder.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I seriously doubt he is blaming the military or aiming for a political point. Obama happens to be winding down wars so equipment becoming surplus naturally follows.

This, along with oceans of money being spent on "homeland security." At some point we're going to need to think better rather than spend harder.

:o You can't do that! Think of the GDP!

GDP, ppfftt.

[Nefaro]

I seriously doubt he is blaming the military or aiming for a political point. Obama happens to be winding down wars so equipment becoming surplus naturally follows.

This, along with oceans of money being spent on "homeland security." At some point we're going to need to think better rather than spend harder.

That could be said for many aspects of our current gov't.

[Boggit]

The police are part of the society. They should be 90% coaching good behavior, 10% taking out the trash. The guy dreaming of pointing his gun at citizens has joined the wrong force. I think SWAT, ERT should probably be a separate force from the regular police. They are for extreme situations. If you need them as the norm, you have failed as a government. You really need to rethink how to encourage people to choose non-criminal activity. If you never think about that, as government, you should resign to go flip burgers, you are out of your depth.

Good point. In the UK for the most part the public see unarmed police, and as the article says - they are not perceived generally as a "threat", or as government's tool of oppression. That's not to say that our police are not trained in the use of firearms, nor that we don't have armed police teams. We do, but they are generally an asset that is assigned to specific situations where deadly force is a proportional response, rather than for general policing. I thought the article made a lot of sense.

[LongBlade]

Good point. In the UK for the most part the public see unarmed police, and as the article says - they are not perceived generally as a "threat", or as government's tool of oppression. That's not to say that our police are not trained in the use of firearms, nor that we don't have armed police teams. We do, but they are generally an asset that is assigned to specific situations where deadly force is a proportional response, rather than for general policing. I thought the article made a lot of sense.

For the UK that seems to work.

In the US it's a different situation. Because we're so much more spread out - even in the cities - one responding officer might have to wait several minutes for backup to arrive. The need to be armed to defend themselves in the interim.

When you get out of the cities and into the counties it becomes even more essential, since some rural counties are enormous.

As a result, I don't think most Americans have any issues with an armed policeman. It's expected. Attitudes only start to shift when they dispatch a SWAT team to bust a barber shop for not having the proper licenses.