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It's commonly understood by even a child that an armored military vehicle belongs in a war zone. Having one driving around your home town sends the message that
by yborg 6y ago
It's commonly understood by even a child that an armored military vehicle belongs in a war zone. Having one driving around your home town sends the message that you live in a war zone, and guess what - you, the citizen, are the enemy.
Even if they are reserved for "gang shootouts or riots" you are wasting money in the 95% of US towns that don't have gang shootouts or riots on such a regular basis that police need to engage in military operations to contain them. So I'm outraged as a taxpayer to see my money being wasted.
- throwawaysea 6y ago> It's commonly understood by even a child that an armored military vehicle belongs in a war zone I don't feel it is "commonly understood". Remove the word 'military' from your descriptor of the vehicle and let's talk in specifics. Do people working in dangerous conditions deserve protection? Yes. Do we need police to handle dangerous conditions even if they are rare? Yes. Do some of those situations require armor to protect them? Yes. Do they require a transport to get police to or from those situations? Yes. So we need armored vehicles, on rare occasions. The fact that an armored vehicle was used by the military is not really relevant. >So I'm outraged as a taxpayer to see my money being wasted. Why are you outraged at getting free surplus equipment that may be at end of life for military purposes? And what is a 'regular basis'? It doesn't matter if it is once a year - the police still need to handle that situation and need to be able to do it safely.