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Unfortunately, Boing Boing has gotten increasingly clickbaity in the past few years, and Cory Doctorow in particular has a strong tendency to write about the st

Unfortunately, Boing Boing has gotten increasingly clickbaity in the past few years, and Cory Doctorow in particular has a strong tendency to write about the story he would have enjoyed reading instead of the one that was actually published, up to and including lying outright if it makes a more exciting article. (E.G., the 2014 article "Small Town Sheriff Buys Tank," which opens "Rural counties across Indiana have been purchasing Afghanistan-surplus tanks with gunner turrets..." It turns out he's talking about armored trucks with no weapons.) I'm not sure if he's doing it on purpose or if he's having genuine issues distinguishing boring facts from exciting fiction, but either way Boing Boing shouldn't be trusted at all. Shame, as they used to be quite good.

paulmd 10y ago
Gunner turrets do not necessarily include permanently mounted weapons. See: B-17 waist-gun turrets. All weapons in the plane were removable. Nobody wants to leave automatic weapons lying around where they would be easy to steal. Your link includes an armored vehicle in which an automatic belt-fed weapon could be mounted (and which are commonly possessed by SWAT teams). It's a military-grade APC, there is no honestly viable quarrel with his title.
- steverb 10y ago
  The quarrel, I think, is that APCs are not tanks. Completely different vehicles, designed for completely different missions.
deleted 10y ago
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