The odds that a local police officer in Massachusetts has access to a military-grade assault rifle, whether in the trunk of a cruiser or at a police station, are far stronger than authorities have previously revealed.
Some 82 cities and towns across the Commonwealth have introduced a total of 1,057 such rifles to their arsenals over the last decade, state public safety officials confirmed yesterday, many of them acquired in recent years in response to the fear of terrorist attacks.
ZOMG! They have teh eeeevil ASSAULT RIFLES!!!1111 Whatever shall we do?!?!?
I honestly don't know what to make of this. They're talking about this like it's something new; like we haven't seen police agencies undergoing further and further militarization for like, oh, the past twenty or thirty years. Like police with semi-automatic rifles is something new...
I particularly loved this part:
"The very fact community police are being equipped with semi-automatic weapons without a public discussion of the possible political and social implications is unfortunately a major step backwards in terms of Massachusetts' national reputation for promoting progressive law enforcement strategy," said the Rev. Eugene Rivers, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community and co-founder of the Boston Ten-Point Coalition.
Police are being equipped with semi-automatic weapons? Who knew? I mean, it's not like the Glock hasn't been a standard issue police sidearm for like 25 years now. It's not like agencies didn't have access to semi-automatic weapons for decades upon decades. The out-and-out fear-mongering is quite strong in this piece, even for the Globe.
I *am* concerned, however, with the overall tone of this piece. It's like they're no longer content with going after civilian ownership of semi-automatic rifles and have set their sights higher, on all non-military ownership. It absolutely boggles my mind why on earth any responsible news agency would lobby for such a plan, having covered other areas of the world where only the government owns the rifles. It's not like we don't have ample precedent for disaster when the people are totally disarmed...
But then again, who ever said the Globe was responsible journalism?
That is all.
12 comments:
I'm concerned that this issue is NEWS!
PORTLAND FUCKING MAINE has had AR-Rifles of one type or another in the trunks of their cruisers (maybe they're now in those nifty overhead racks) since 1996!!!!
Portland has NO FUCKING CRIME, we have bored suburban white kids who call themselves "Gangs" and spraypaint their tags on stuff. The worst it gets is when the bars let out in the Old Port...and that's only because the dumbass Police Cheif doesn't staff any officers on the streets!
BPD getting some refurbed rifles is NEWS? Why didn't they have them as of 10 years ago?
Jay said:
"It absolutely boggles my mind why on earth any responsible news agency would lobby for such a plan"
That's where you're mistaken. The Gloe is NOT a responsible news agency.
Purely aside from guns, let's look at Mass. It's the most corrupt state in the union with the possible exception of Louisiana or Illinois. The Globe doesn't even talk about it until the feds make an indictment.
Finneran? Silence. Mennino? silence. 5 different major state highway agencies? Silence. patrolmen making 80k+ a year? Silence.
I keep telling people. Mass is NOT a "liberal" state. It's just a corrupt and incompetent one.
"The very fact community police are being equipped with semi-automatic weapons without a public discussion of the possible political and social implications is unfortunately a major step backwards in terms of Massachusetts' national reputation for promoting progressive law enforcement strategy,"
People of Massachusetts - GTFO of my republic. Srsly. Kthxbai.
The police having "military-grade rifles" is cause for alarm? Geez, from about 1860 to 1941, the cops often had better firearms than the average soldier.
On a related note, can anyone explain to me just _why_ this trend toward militarizing the police? The last few times I've seen cops, they've had buzzsaw haircuts and ramrod postures that make them look more like soldiers just out of boot camp. What happened to the friendly neighborhood beat cop, who looked like an ordinary guy in a blue uniform?
Because the police are afraid of the citizenry they are supposed to "serve and protect". Maybe they have good reason at times, maybe it's not their fault they got to where they did, but there it is.
I can see where this would catch them by surprise. Why, if the police were to have semi-automatic rifles, just think of the carnage that would result!
Kind of like the carnage that DIDN'T happen when these guys were patrolling NYC:
Everything Old is New Again
1,057 in the last decade?
Geez, there's more than that in my neighborhood. Expand that to the ZIP code I live in and you'd get into real numbers.
Regards,
Rabbit.
Wasn't it Jimmy Carter who said assault weapons are only good for killing cops? How's that work?
I'm in favor of the police being allowed to posses whatever weaponry and equipment the everyday man on the street can possess. And NOTHING else.
The thing that concerns me about this story is the use of the word "progressive". It's being taught in our public schools that the "progressive movement" is some type of new (and valid) political movement, when in fact is it simply another move toward increasing government power. It's just repackaged state-centric hogwash, along the lines of "national socialism" and euro-fascism--but with more baseball, apple pie, and paranoid, sweaty surveillance-state cheerleaders wringing their hands about veterans who can recite parts of the Constitution.
It just annoys me when writers use "progressive" in place of "mostly useless". While Massachusetts continues to waste money on some non-existent external remedy for the mental illness known as gun paranoia, the only progress made is the height of the bar in a graph titled, "State Government Spending". I doubt rifles are going to make a dent in crime, but they will be another tool in the box should the officer find himself in a tight situation.The major concern here would be the cost of the rifles. How can they afford them? I thought there was a "budget crisis" in Massachusetts?
Now Jay, those are not "assault" rifles, they're "patrol" rifles, that is WHOLE different ball game...
/snark off
sigh...
"...public discussion of the possible political and social implications...", yeah, standard-type gun bigot BS. As further proven by "progressive law enforcement strategy".
I remember reading that the +P load originally came about, and the +P+, because there were LE agencies that realized they needed a more powerful sidearm, but the brass were unwilling to deal with the screaming and bitching from people like the reverend; so they got an ammo company to produce what were, in some cases, proof rounds for carry. Idiocy to keep idiots quiet.
I'll throw in, on Wolfwalkers question, why, it's TACTICAL, you know!
And idiotic. I've sat in a car full of 20- to 30-year veterans of an agency and listened to them talking about the bad attitude of the recent academy graduates, and it tells you something. If the older cops think your attitude sucks, what will you do to the public?
I've watched a class of recruits(and they often call them 'boots') being run through marching drill. In light rain. I've never yet heard a good reason for this crap for LE officers, but they did it. And run the effing academy like it's an offshoot of the Marines or something.
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