In case you thought our police weren’t militarized enough the federal government has decided to hand out $500 million dollars of free military equipment to United States police forces:
Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the “1033 Program” that gave more than $500 million of military gear to U.S. police forces in 2011 alone.
1033 was passed by Congress in 1997 to help law-enforcement fight terrorism and drugs, but despite a 40-year low in violent crime, police are snapping up hardware like never before. While this year’s staggering take topped the charts, next year’s orders are up 400 percent over the same period.
A bunch of people given authority and practically blanket immunity receiving a bunch of free military weapons, what could go wrong? I love how the federal government will take money they stole from the public, use it to buy weapons of war, and then give away those weapons to police agencies but won’t let me have one authentic M-14 for my collection. Unlike many police officers I’ve proven to be trustworthy with weaponry and certainly am not going to use an M-14 for anything devious.
Seriously there is something messed up in this country when the civilian police forces are getting access to fancy wizbang weaponry while other civilians aren’t allowed to even own a machine gun unless it was manufactured before 1986 (or in Minnesota unless it’s on the curio and relics list).
If I recall correctly, either Virginia State Police or Fairfax County Police have issued NVGs to officers.