Events last month in Ferguson, Missouri (read my detailed thoughts here) forced Americans to confront the frightening reality that many of of the nation’s police departments have been quietly, but consistently, militarizing over the past couple of decades. It’s one thing to intellectually understand that this has happened, it’s quite another to see cops deploy tanks and point sniper rifles at peacefully protesting U.S. citizens.
Just as disturbing as the scenes themselves, is the fact that this has been happening for so long under the 1033 transfer program with only muted criticism. The program was originated in the late 1990′s under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 (recall that the NDAA is also being used to allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial), and it allows for the transfer of excess Department of Defense equipment to domestic police. In other words, it has been public policy for almost two decades to militarize the police.
With the issue squarely still in the public consciousness, it would behoove us to understand that this program is not only arming police with weapons of war. In fact, public schools are also receiving such items, including grenade launchers, M16s and MRAPs.
The Wall Street Journal reports that:
A federal program that has drawn criticism in recent weeks for supplying surplus military gear to local police has also provided high-powered rifles, armored vehicles and other equipment to police at public schools, some of whom were unprepared for what they were getting.
In the wake of school shootings in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere, some school security departments developed SWAT teams, added weapons and called on the federal government to help supply gear. But now, the program is facing renewed scrutiny from both outside observers and schools using it.
The Los Angeles Unified School District stocked up on grenade launchers, M16 rifles and even a multi-ton armored vehicle from the program. But the district is getting rid of the grenade launchers, which it never intended to use to launch grenades or use in a school setting, said Steven Zipperman, chief of the Los Angeles Schools Police Department. The launchers, received in 2001, might have helped other police in the county disperse crowds by shooting rubber munitions, he said.
In July, the district received a massive MRAP armored vehicle. Mr. Zipperman said his department thought it could be useful for evacuations and to save lives in a “sustained incident.”
Just in case you aren’t aware, this is an MRAP:
Makes you wonder how schools survived in America for over two hundred years without tanks. More from the WSJ…
In Texas, near the Mexican border, the sprawling Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District has 34,700 students and operates its own SWAT team, thanks in part to military gear it received in recent years from the federal program. The gear included two Humvees and a cargo truck, as well as power generators, said district Police Chief Ricardo Perez. The district applied for weapons, too, but wasn’t given any, so instead purchased its own M4 and AR-15 assault-style rifles, he said.
The weapons are given to schools through the 1033 Program, created by Congress in the early 1990s to allow law-enforcement agencies to obtain excess Defense Department supplies, paying only for shipping. The program has transferred $5.1 billion in items, including $4.5 million worth in 2013.
Among recipients are more than a dozen school police departments, according to a spreadsheet from the Defense Logistics Agency, which runs the program. But for security reasons the list excludes districts that received only “tactical” gear such as weapons, as opposed to other types of supplies. That means the list likely understates the number of districts that participated.
California is one of few states that provides a list of participating school districts and what they received. Its state website shows that two school police departments received armored vehicles, others added M-16s and grenade launchers to their armories, while one district took in televisions, projectors and a podium but no weapons.
What I find most interesting about all of this, is where have all the “gun control” politicians and hysterics been on the dangers of the 1033 for all these years?
Indeed, while politicians in D.C. appear determined to invade half the countries on earth, while simultaneously arming the other half, from terrorist groups in the Middle East to police departments and school districts domestically, it appears the only group being singled out for disarmament is the citizenry itself. Makes you wonder doesn’t it…
For more thoughts on the matter read: How to Spot a Hypocrite in the Gun Debate and Other Reflections on Newtown.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
It’s like the movie Red Dawn, except the occupying force belongs to the US government.
When do we get Hunger Games?
It’s not the hardware.
It’s the attitude, the legalities, the training, etc.
SWAT (aka tactical) teams of cops have been around since at least the 1970’s. They weren’t used for routine stuff then, nor did cops stop women by the side of the road and do anal and vaginal cavity searches on the hood of the “victims'” car.
It’s not about the armored cars or the M16’s.
It’s about a 5 course meal of teaching cops that they are SPECIAL, UBERMENSCHEN, while the citizenry is Special Ed, UNTERMENSCHEN and that COPS are to be UNQUESTIONED AUTHORITY and anything other than immediate COMPLIANCE is tantamount to being threatened with a .357 magnum.
This is Peak Politics.
This is the Apogee of Political Organization of society. OF COURSE the cops, as the tip of the Political Spear, are acting like Himmler’s SS. Of course they are acting like Stalin’s NKVD.
Political Organization in action, as predictable as night following day.
If political organization of society rises much from where we are now, we are certain to see American versions of the horrors described in the Black Book of Communism.
Under Stalin, the NKVD had quotas for how many people they shot each week.
The commander would report to his superiors in Moscow about a counter-revolutionary plot he’d ferreted out. They’d call back, asking how many conspirators’ corpses he had.
In order to back his claim, he’d order enough people to be shot in the head to satisfy his superiors’ inquiry. People were rounded up AT RANDOM and shot, even a wife who came to the police station to inquire about her husband (who preceded her to behind the office) was taken out back and had a bullet fired into her skull behind the ear.
Murder by QUOTA. This is coming to America if political organization of our society rises much more.
DC ,one big difference is we still have a lot men in this country with high power guns that would fight back.The Russian people like the Jews in Germany had no way to stop the murder. We still do.
Smokin’ in the boys room? Bring in the MRAPs!!! Show those little fuckers who is boss!!
And you little fuckers better not wander around without a hall pass, either … otherwise they’ll drone your skinny asses!!
Ve vill restore order, ja!!!
So we are “giving” cash-strapped school districts (which we have been hearing about for decades, there is NEVER enough of our money, kinda stupid they supported offshoring too, anyway) departments full of equipment that requires MASSIVE money to learn to use, MASSIVE staff to deploy them, MASSIVE expenses (with paid for life employees! win!).
Too broke to provide proper text books and supplies, but not too broke to spend millions on a team to deploy a freaking tank?
Peak insanity. Peak politics. Peak society.
This just can’t continue. Dear god please don’t let it.
Even worse than the military gear, many cash strapped schools are making kids use Chromebooks. That is going too far & will create home grown terrorists.
@Econ
Google is providing new tools for schools for free.
In exchange they retain ALL the info on our children.
Their grades, reading habits, parent participation, health, the list goes on and on.
“Free” means “raped” in this country.
We are now giving away our children’s FUTURE chances of privacy and they aren’t even old enough to understand the ramifications, let alone protest.
Someday the youth in this country is going to open their eyes and nothing but hate is going to pour forth.
There will be a bounty on grandparents’ heads then. I figure right after gramps & grams run out of spending the tyke’s futures.
All I can hope is that the kiddeos realize I never benefited from the something for nothing blitz that has doomed them.
My friend considered the green zone in Iraq a break after teaching in LA. Its all part of society breaking down. Kids I talk to, just ain’t right in the head, courtesy of their parents.
@ bb, the trouble is knowing when to start shooting.
One hour too early and the biggest, baddest gang in America will concentrate to obliterate you. One second too late and you’re already on the train car on your way to the camp. Timing is EVERYTHING.
Armies cannot resist an idea whose time has come, but neither can they force an idea whose time is not yet here. In times of tumult, everything balances on the razor’s edge, no?
@ TE, You nailed it. GOOG and FB look increasingly like departments within the NSA & CIA. If they did not start out as part of the political hydra, they are most assuredly part of it now.
OTOH, the US military has been collecting info on your kids for several years now, after each of our CONgressmen approved it.
Human nature + technology + political ennui is a formula for D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R
@ yahsure, my 4th grade teacher wife would agree with you in spades. The kids today are mostly helpless, their parents are mostly clueless. She has “data” going back to the early 1980’s, and the comparisons would cause your jaw to hit your chest.
Kids today are being raised by dysfunctional parents, who themselves were raised by dysfunctional parents…many of whom were ALSO raised by dysfunctional parents. “New Math” and other idiotic strategies didn’t just show up in schools, they also animated many parenting recommendations going back a long, long time.