Trump Set To Roll Back Limits On Military Gear For Police
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This seems like a questionable decision, to say the least. Doesn't it?
And where are the right and the GOP on this? Sometimes pro-militarization-of-cops, sometimes anti-... I suppose it's no great puzzle, and there are just different factions...
The Dems need to make sure they don't get represented as--and don't actually become--the anti-"law-and-order" party again. (Even the phrase "law and order" seems to carry a note of disapproval--or is it just me?) But you can be anti-crime, obviously, without being in favor of turning every police force into a paramilitary unit. Grenade launchers and tracked vehicles do sound like more than a bit much to me. I mean...do cops really need ammunition of ".50 caliber or greater"? Does law enforcement need...what? 20 mm rounds? Or what?
This seems like a questionable decision, to say the least. Doesn't it?
And where are the right and the GOP on this? Sometimes pro-militarization-of-cops, sometimes anti-... I suppose it's no great puzzle, and there are just different factions...
The Dems need to make sure they don't get represented as--and don't actually become--the anti-"law-and-order" party again. (Even the phrase "law and order" seems to carry a note of disapproval--or is it just me?) But you can be anti-crime, obviously, without being in favor of turning every police force into a paramilitary unit. Grenade launchers and tracked vehicles do sound like more than a bit much to me. I mean...do cops really need ammunition of ".50 caliber or greater"? Does law enforcement need...what? 20 mm rounds? Or what?
posted by Winston Smith at
8:12 AM
3 Comments:
This, coupled with the ongoing evisceration of the 4th amendment (for the latest, see the recently passed "House Joint Resolution 76"), is making it less and less kooky to say that the police have become the standing army the founders warned us against.
Apparently, per NPR, the Obama administration's regulations were little more than a political gesture, as only a very few police forces ever sought to buy the restricted items. Trump's administration is now making the inverse political gesture.
So, if true, this is all pretty lame.
Ah.
This is one of the reasons my general outrage level about such things has dropped...I've come to realize that I generally don't have the background information required to know whether or not they're actually as they seem.
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