Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion Police Armed To Deal With Libertarian "Threat"

I agree with Vermi and Hexen but I think the non-violent approach wont be what happens, the course has been too firmly set for us. I think everyone is too damn complacent and until every single average person is severely hindered in all facets of daily life nobody is going to lift a finger. I think it will get much worse before it gets better and who knows what the landscape will look like afterwards to "get better" in.

Everything else I've posted here points to this being the case in my opinion. Maybe the police need this equipment because they are preparing for mass civil unrest? There's an idea, anyone else have any idea why the local PD's need MRAP's and other military gear?

Oh I imagine we disagree on quite a bit. I don't like to get political with the guild though since given half a chance I'm going to start sounding like Heinlein and freaking everyone out. Regarding any issue though, the most effective approach depends on your objective. If you want the civil liberties lost in the Gestalt cloud of post 9/11 collective insanity then violence is the only way. I think that's a lost cause in the current environment, and any recovery of those is a few hundred years out. If you want to stem the tide, in my opinion the prescription for America is to make politics a dry, dull affair unappealing to ordinary people and completely divorced from sexy social justice issues and current events garbage. I guess I have to reveal a little to explain why, but it boils down to the fact that I don't think everyone should be voting. The source of my conditional agreement with libertarians is the fact that they're idealistically prone to number-crunching and generally saying no to everything, unlike liberals and neocons, neither of which have ever met a law with insane and far reaching consequences they didn't love at first sight.

Yep, its sad but I don't see how its going to get better through legislation and bureaucracy. We have already been shown how corrupt and wholly ineffective our government is at dealing with even the smallest things (VA healthcare to name one current headline.) Things will get bad and then they will get really bad and who knows the outcome, eventually people will have had enough.

Such a fail thread. I'm with Obs. I'm failing to see the connect between the police owning an MRAP, and the loss of civil liberties.

Who knew that government could "overreach" or rob me of my freedoms by parking an armored car in the garage? Here's my question though guys... do we "lose" liberties each time they buy an MRAP? Or is it like a one-time thing?

For example, if the cops in Indiana buy an MRAP, have I lost some of my liberty even though I don't live in Indiana? Or is it based on your proximity to said MRAP? Maybe those of us in California lose less liberty than those of you in the midwest, since you are closer in proximity to the MRAP?

And jesus -- what the fuck happens if they buy a second MRAP? Do I lose more liberties if they have two parked in the garage. I also forgot to ask -- do they need to actually use the MRAP for me to lose my liberties? Or is it enough that it's parked in the garage?

And if they have to use it... does "use" mean driving? So if they take it on a spin around the block, do I lose liberties each time they take it around the block or, again, is it a one-time deal? Or do they actually have to use it in the course of police work?

Jesus. Who knew the buying a single truck could cost us so much fucking liberty!

Another fail of a fucking thread.

Ya i agree with this. What does it hurt for police to have gear? Except for what it costs us.

Damn, my goal to kill the thread was an hour without a post, but I only got 30 minutes.

hahaha

Ok Obs, let's tackle you first.

"Not really, it might just mean that their SWAT would need this to deal with a situation. Happens all the time."

"You would probably be surpised how many times the bomb unit from swat is called out."

I don't care about how many times they are called out. What I care about is "Are MRAP's and similar armored military vehicles necessary for civilian (by this I mean non-military) police forces?". This is not an easy question to answer but here's what I look at.

1. Does the cost justify the need? I will assume this is a concept you are familiar with. It's a basic common sense principal of running any profitable enterprise. Could you spend 10 million dollars on a security system for your $500,000 house? Sure, you could, but would you? Probably not because the cost would not justify the need unless you were protecting 10's of millions in assets inside. Hopefully we can agree so far.

In the case of armored vehicles for police use, the answer is unequivocally NO.

In 20 years, a grand total of 699 people have died in the US from explosive devices. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16394919 That's 35 people per year Obs.

In the last 20 years, there have been 3,358 officer fatalities. This is total, from all causes of death. http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html That's about 167 per year.

Even if you absurdly assume 100% of all the deaths listed above could have been prevented by a MRAP, you'd be looking at saving a grand total of about 4084 lives over 20 years, or about 204 lives per year. Well who gives a fuck? 38,000 people die EVERY YEAR in the US from suicide. 69,000 die EVERY YEAR from diabetes. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

This Wall Street Journal article says about 200 MRAPs have been handed out to police and that they cost between 400k and 700k each, brand new. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304450904579366963588434656 Let's assume for a second the government could sell each one for 200k, a pretty conservative estimate. That's 40 MILLION DOLLARS. How many lives do you think could be saved with 40 million dollars if we spent that money on mental health to prevent suicides? What if we spent that money on nutrition education to prevent diabetes? Hell, what if we sent that 40 million to Africa to build wells and provide people with clean water? How many lives do you think that would save?

Here's a crazy idea. How bout we take that 40 million and divide it equally between every single person who has a government backed student loan debt AND is currently employed and forgive them that much off their student loans?

The federal government could sell or scrap these vehicles and sell the parts and make some of the trillions of dollars they spent on this stupid fucking war back. Instead, what do they do? They "donate" them to local law enforcement. How is this good?

Not only do we miss out on the money that could be recouped by selling these machines, but taxpayers are now going to incur an additional cost to maintain them. How much do you think it costs Roby to maintain his Viper in good mechanical condition? These vehicles cost 5-7 times what his viper cost and they are military machines. How much do you think it costs for even one tire on these things? 2 grand? What kind of gas money do you think they spend on training exercises? How much do you think it costs in LEO man hours to be properly trained on these things?

How can any of you guys be okay with such an obvious waste of money for such a shitty return on saving lives? There's absolutely no logical or factual basis that you could even attempt to claim that would prove that this money in justifiably spent based on the maximum number of lives it could possibly save. When other developed countries are spanking our fucking asses in GDP, we need to be allocating our money more carefully. The cost does not justify the need.

2. The type of crime (guns and explosive use) that would warrant use of these machines isn't really that big of a deal if you look at the numbers. Murder isn't even in the top 15 causes of death. Out of 2.5 million deaths in 2011, 2 million (80%) of them were caused by the top 15 causes of death, none of which are murder. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

It would take a long gun (high powered rifle) to punch through standard issue police body armor. Look at the numbers. Deaths by long guns in 2011 was 694. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states Oh my God, NO!!!!!!! Guess what Obs? More people die annually in construction accidents than that. https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html Even if these MRAP's could prevent every single long gun murder in the US, it would be a grand total of 694 people. Big fucking woop. Why do they need these again?

Suicides by long gun in 2011 were 2,957. This means a long gun is 4 times more likely to kill it's owner by their own free will than to kill another human being.

Simple fact is, the type of violent crime that would lead to the necessary deployment of these machines is a statistical non-factor when compared to other dangers in this country.

Please, provide me with any logical facts that refute anything I said above. Give me any logical reasons why it's better to have these things than sell them and use the money on preventing other types of death that are more common.

First of all my friend, tldr.

If you are bringing the money spent equation into all this(which Gfist never touched), then thats a whole different subject.

This thread was, and is, about how the vehicle caused "America is beginning to resemble an occupied country like Afghanistan or Iraq."

Everything Vermi said and..

Sonya, MRAP's are complex inanimate objects. They do not take away anybody's liberty by themselves. Its the posture they give law enforcement that fuels the argument Ive made many times here and elsewhere; that the mindset's of average PD's have become more "us versus them" and these vehicles and gear clearly give a military posture which is what they were created and intended to do.

Vermi decided to explained the reason why there is no need for them both financially and as a life saving mechanism. The only real argument for them that I can see is the same old tired saying.. "if it saves one life." But then, who do you think it will be saving? If it saved anyone? the tax paying citizen who paid for it? I think not.