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.