It truly does.
Massachusetts Law Enforcement are sucking up the surplus full auto military hardware to issue their policemen.
If machine guns are just good for slaughtering people then why can the police get new ones, but ordinary citizens have to settle for antiques set to a much higher price point? Do the police have a need for gunning down lots of people? Or are machine guns not so bad, and may have a defensive, protective purpose, in which case ordinary citizens may have a legitimate use for them and they aren't so unusual?
Remember, guns get stolen from the police all the time. And not all cops are angels.
The police aren't soliders. They are civilians like you and me. Their job is just taking the law and order burden off of the rest of the people's hands so they can go about their other business with that role taken care of.
As far as arming of the whole populace, and in light of the Second Amendment, it is my feeling that if the police can equip themselves with an arm, then everyone else can too. It'd be an easy rule to remember. And it shuts down the "Where do you stop? nuclear weapons? Attack submarines with torpedoes? 155mm howitzers? Fragmentation grenades?" argument of the hoplophobes by drawing that line. Cops don't have howitzers. The police don't use fragmentation grenades. Johnny laws doesn't have officers armed with guns hidden in cell phones, but they do have a snub nosed pistol on their ankle sometimes.
It's a starting point. Get to that line and then we'll discuss civilian ownership of M1 Tanks, with or without the cannon in the turret.
After news about them doing that arm-up got out... they rescinded that policy of weapon acquisition, so... Glad folks were watching and questioned those authorities.
[Update: But THIS Sheriff has the right idea. Sell over-priced collectible machine guns to private citizens. It's win-win.]
3 comments:
I can't think of a time that police need full automatic firearms, but then I haven't seen Public Enemy yet.
I agree, I don't think the police should be able to have better armament than what is available to the average person.
The case of the 2 police chiefs breaking into the house in Ohio should show that the public needs to be on a par with law enforcement.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/official-says-police-chiefs-probed-in-break-in-at-ohio-home-of-parker-broderick-surrogate-86153/
The atomic bomb strawman is false because just having the bomb somewhere is threatening to the neigbors, where having a tank or artillery is merely a big rifle. I read once that the British Regulars marched out to Lexington and Concord to take artillery away from the rebels. "Every terrible weapon of the solder" has to include artillery. And what does one do with the Constitutional provision for the issuance of Letters of Marque and Reprisal if the private ownership of ships and cannon was not contemplated?
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