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Weapons of War On Our Streets: A Guide to the Militarization of America’s Police
The claim often heard from those attempting to pass more gun control legislation is that all they’re trying to do is get the “weapons of war off our streets,” but it’s simply untrue that “weapons of war” are available to the general public. You’d last about three minutes in a conventional war with an AR-15, even with one of the most aggressive builds you can get your hands on (that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for guerilla uprisings to defeat powerful enemies). The truth is that the only people with “weapons of war” on America’s streets are, increasingly, the police.
Thanks primarily to the Pentagon’s 1033 program which allows law enforcement agencies to get their hands on Department of Defense technology and the Bush-era War on Terror, American police have received a startling amount of heavy-duty, military-grade hardware. Between 1998 and 2014, the dollar value of military hardware sent to police departments skyrocketed from $9.4 million to $796.8 million.
And just as when “all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail”, militarized police have become more willing to use their new weapons when carrying out law enforcement tasks. For example, the number of SWAT raids in the United States grew dramatically from about 3,000 in 1980 to a whopping 50,000 SWAT raids in 2014, according to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
To say that the militarization of the police is nothing new is to ignore America’s recent history as well as the long-standing model of a peace officer. As the police have militarized and the Pentagon backs major players in Hollywood, the focus has shifted from one who keeps the peace to one who enforces the law – and that’s an important difference.
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Published in Policing
Yeah, lets go chase down the Tsarnaev brothers with .38s and a couple of Remington 870s.
Strange, I’ve had encounters with the police on multiple occasions and I’ve yet to have an M4 in my face. I Wonder why.
And that POS pothead always hanging around the local bakery storefront, I want to the cops to enforce the law because it’s illegal and the lowlifes presence makes customers drive elsewhere. If the owner could could buy a Voice of God device I’m sure he’d use it.
Be careful with that tinfoil, bro, I think the brand you’re using is too high in lead content.
This is a long-standing concern raised on the left, the right, and by libertarians. Distinguish this from riot gear, which has been around for a very long time, and which every National Guard, as the governor’s back-up to local law enforcement, trains to use with proper riot-control tactics.
See, for instance:
On the other hand, there may be a positive correlation between transfer of office automation equipment, vehicles, and other equipment, except weapons, and decreasing crime rates in counties. So suggests a 2017 academic study in an economics journal, summarized on Journalist’s Resource, “Militarization of Police.”
Also note this piece at Small Wars Journal: “Militarised Criminal Networks in Mexico and the Challenges They Present to the Military and Police.”
I don’t see the problem with police officers having access to fully automatic assault rifles and carbines. Then again, I think the 1986 rule on automatic weapons should be repealed.
I’d prefer if the program focused on the border patrol and agencies with SWAT teams with a solid record of success, particularly in big cities. If you had one M4, would you give it to me, or someone like @bossmongo ? More to the point, I think it would be more helpful to subsidize ammo for training than just give out weapons. From what I have read, too many SWAT teams function like Third World militaries – lots of cool gear, not much money spent on maintenance or training.
The only problem I have with militarized police SWAT teams is they’re sometimes used as political props to turn what would be a simple, routine arrest and search of a non-violent suspect (think Roger Stone) into a photo op for the prosecution.
Precious. Really precious.
The tools should fit the mission and rules of engagement. The mission of city police and the US Army is different and clearly the rules of engagement are different. The Army is designed to kill people and break things. The police has the mission of protecting and servicing and minimizing collateral damage. For me it is all about having the right tools for the job.
What is interesting to me about these discussions is the photos. The text may describe weapons and tools (e.g. infra red scopes, armored vehicles), but the photos always show police officers wearing riot gear. If you’ll notice, you can’t see more than the stocks of the long guns in the photo above. It would seem that it is the body armor, kevlar helmets, face shields, gas masks, tactical gloves that are so scary.
After news photographers showed pictures of lightly-clad black protesters facing armored-up cops in Ferguson (so brave! Never mind that the undermanned and overworked law enforcement officeres managed to more-or-less contain violent riots without causing a single death) officials in Dallas decided that Dallas police officers working a planned #BLM protest would limit their protective gear to the usual ballistic vest. Five police officers were murdered that day, eleven more (and a civilian) were injured.
The murderer was taken out, eventually, by a SWAT team armed with, among other things, military grade explosive. I’d remind you that—being police officers and not soldiers— they did spend hours attempting to talk him into surrendering. Had he done so, he would have been taken into custody without further injury, and would doubtless be living on the taxpayer’s dime even now.
Body armor saves lives, but not just law enforcement lives. An adequately protected police officer can respond to potentially
lethal violence—bricks, bottles, bats, punches, kicks—with less-lethal weapons. Body armor, and even armored vehicles, by protecting police officers bodies, allow them to clear rioters more effectively and safely than they did in the old days.
In the 1968 Democratic Convention riots, 110 protesters were injured badly enough to be hospitalized; 192 police officers were injured.
If modern police responded to life-threatening projectiles and blinding lasers with violence, perhaps rioters could not return night after night to hurt more police officers.
Non-lethal options are great for for subduing non-lethal threats. But violent aggressors should be put down hard.
It looks to me that the increase in highly specialized tactical units makes for more judicious and controlled use of firearms. It certainly does not appear to have increased shooting incidents. Below is the annual total of firearms discharge incidents for all of NYPD from the 2018 Use of Force report which I suspect is similar in other cities:
I won’t be around to see it, of course, but when historians get around to chronicling the first quarter of the 21st Century they may well label it “The Era of Missed Opportunities.”
A few cases:
*America reeled from 9/11 has the opportunity to go into Afghanistan, kick some terrorist backside and really draw a line in the sand. Instead, George W. decides not to define victory and allows a cabal of convince him to revenge his daddy in Iraq. Nineteen years later we’re still a duck making love to a football over there.
*The Tea Party takes the House in 2010 and John Boehner decides “the crazies” will harm the institution and must be neutered. Instead of embracing the voters that handed him the Speaker’s gavel he decided to fight them. His successor, Paul Ryan, wasn’t as open about it, but fought them as well. Republican voters saw that their “leaders” didn’t exactly share their concerns and views and decided to stop following them. Trump announces his run in June of 2015 and Boehner resigns that September.
*George Floyd’s death prompts almost universal outrage. Instead of using it to reform and unite, the left decides that rioting is better course. They had the moment. They could have pushed all sorts of police reform – from ending no-knock warrants to de-militarizing – but decided revolution played better than allowing Trump to sign anything that was significant step in the right direction.
I have similar thoughts when I hear the usual lament about “weapons of war on our streets.” If politicians were so concerned, they’d take those weapons away from the government employees they directly control. It would be easy enough, and constitutional. But that’s not their real goal.
Look at it thru the lens of learned reality. People of the left lie; a corollary is that they project.
I have questions about the utility of local police owning armored vehicles. They are expensive to maintain.
OTOH, I’ve yet to see a police force field M240 machine guns, TOW missiles or field artillery. Now that would be “militarizing” police.
Employing body armor, helmets and camouflage uniforms seems to be a practical choice. I hear the Navy might have several million dollars worth of BLUE camo uniforms that could be repurposed. Maybe they’d be less scary!
Police departments went to the AR-15 after the North Hollywood Shootout. LAPD officers had to go to a gun store and borrow AR-15’s. Shotguns and pistols could not match the firepower that the two bank robbers had. Police officers have AR-15’s because all of us can have them.
The police AR-15’s are semi-auto. Some agencies may have HK MP-5’s for SWAT teams. These may have a selector for automatic fire but they are set-up for a 3 round burst with one pull on the trigger.
I have inserted one media video, and two LAPD training videos.
Missing from the OP is information about the threat that law enforcement people face. Are the criminals becoming increasingly well armed and violent? Is it that the the use of military vehicles, arms, and body armor is justified by the danger?
Seems like drug arrests have been especially dangerous, especially those involving drug cartels.
I agree with you.
I still think the Israeli skunk spray would shut down riots very quickly. Shut down the neighborhood, too, but the smell will go away in a few weeks without rebuilding.
Fire fighting copters and airplanes could strafe the zone with tomato juice.
I’ve heard that the level of training LEOs receive ultimately cumes down to a cost-benefit analysis. The theory goes something like the cost of firearm training should not exceed the cost of lawsuits from innocent bystanders. A pretty mechanical way to look at things. I too wish we’d invest more resources into training, if only because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s true, if the cops are engaged in an arms race with criminals we had better not let them fall behind. The Sinaloa Cartel don’t exactly honor the Firearm Owners Protection Act.
Why tomato juice?
Traditionally, it’s what you bathe the dog in when he’s been skunked. I’ve no idea if it works, but just imagine a sky train of firefighting tankers dousing blue cities in red tomato juice. Even if it’s pointless, it’d be fitting symbolism in this summer of absurdity.
That may have been true decades ago, but there has been an escalation in violence to go along with the social decay of our major cities. London Bobbies didn’t need guns to begin with, but I’m sure they’d like to be issued Uzis now . . .
So, why are police wearing camouflage in an urban environment? That includes federal police.
I do think police should be limited in what weapons they carry. If those weapons are required to suppress insurrection, then it should be done by the real military (and I include the National Guard).
When things get that bad, it’s a failure of the police or their political masters. Another organization should take the lead.
Call it “good cop, bad cop.” The military suppresses the insurrection, and then the good cops come back and provide the lighter touch that’s preferred.
I disagree about Floyd. The riots have nothing to do with Floyd who died of a drug overdose. The trigger was pulled because the Covid epidemic was not working to remove Trump. The rioting had been planned and funded.
You wanted to have this discussion a year ago then you may have made a point. Now? Sorry I have watched about 2 months or “peaceful protest” that have effectively burned down building and shot residents. If the police were come out and meet this head on I would be for arming the police with tanks and gunships to bring back the peace.
Chauvin’s conduct toward Floyd was inexcusable, and there would have been protests even in the absence of the organized Insurrectionists. That would have run its course in a few days but for the well funded and peopled Insurrection. They are spending a lot of money on both protesters and rioters churning and burning. Of course, the looting has been very lucrative.
OK, after reading the OP and the comments I am now convinced — for and against.
Rifles have been used for law enforcement for a long time. Think of the Old West, posse scenario. The AR is only a rifle, even if it is capable of automatic fire (many police ARs are not).* The objection so many people have to ARs is simple Ludditism. They are the state of the art today, for military and hunting rifles, just as bolt-actions were before them. It can be argued the lever-action rifle was the assault rifle of its day, and they were actually more commonly used for civilian (including law enforcement) purposes than for military.
If you spend any time reading about old, bolt-action military rifles, you’ll even find them being issued to postal services.** Even in an urban setting, rifles can make sense. Pistols, even if they can be used for trick shots at longer ranges, are very short-range weapons, in a violent encounter. Shotguns can make longer shots with slugs, but that’s only because a slug is an attempt to help a shotgun emulate a rifle. Pistols, due to the limitations of a short barrel, are under-powered, and simply more difficult to shoot accurately, especially under stress. They are a good compromise for situations where police are driving/walking around, keeping an eye on things and issuing the occasional citation. They are not ideal for high-risk arrest warrant situations, where violence may be hard to avoid.
This point needs to be made over and over again. Widespread riot, looting, and arson is the worst thing that can happen to any effort to demilitarize the police. Then again, it’s also a pretty bad way to kick of an effort to defund or abolish police, but that doesn’t seem to matter…
* A real machine gun is much more heavy-duty than a mere M16 or Uzi. They are meant for sustained fire of hundreds or thousands of rounds at a time, usually while resting on a mechanical support (like a tripod), and fed from a belt of ammunition.
** I recall reading about a particular rifle issued to the Irish postal service, and I own a rifle built on a Brno action that I was told (based on the serial number range) may have been a postal service rifle.
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Rifles
This is good. Thanks. Though I’d put an asterisk by some of the citations. I must admit I’m a bit sad because I don’t remember the exact issue. I was talking with a prof about some of these findings and fairly exciting paper using instruments (proximity to military bases) to derive at a causal statement like “increase in 1033 funding decreases shooting) and he tore into it.
As I understand it– and I don’t remember it 100%– is that the accounting for when police received these items is confounded. I think it is that office that gets, say, an item released in 2012, gets counted as having received that item in that year. The bias then, is far more likely to deflate the relationship between crime and time.
He’s a FOIA master so that is what he is having undergrads do– get the actual request timing.
I apologize to him if I misstated the specifics of the complaint but I believe I have reflected the major takeaways.
There are other reasons to think why police militarization in terms of gear/drip isn’t the problem, but, I must note there is an issue about data collection.
Edit: spacing/spelling/phrasing