Columbia PD gets an MRAP

Apparently Mines are a big issue in Columbia.

Thanks for typing my thoughts, Omega Man.

If they're allowed to have MRAPs, we should be allowed to have M2 SLAMs.

In 2002 our police dept received an armored car. It was a commercial type that armed guards from companies like Brinks that pick up cash and receipts in. The bank received some type of tax write-off for donating it. The thing had 350,000+ miles on it and was due to get replaced anyway. It was kind of a hunk of crap.

At any rate the police dept got it and the first thing they did was paint it black and slap their shield design on it. The fire dept shares a parking lot with the cop-shop and when they got it back we went to take a look at the thing with them. They thought it was the coolest thing ever even though the armor rating in the door said it wasn't even up to the task of stopping most of the common rifles used to take deer.


I asked them what they were going to do with it and they said that they were going to use it to serve high risk warrants in if they knew that the subject was particularly dangerous. To my knowledge they never served a single warrant in it. It just stayed darkening the parking lot in the center spot by the fence collecting dust. It never moved once that I could tell. You could tell from the dirt on top and the leaves underneath that it didn't move much. It finally disappeared one day and that was that.

My point with this story is just to wonder out loud how much of this is just shiny toy syndrome or how many of them would actually oppress other Americans if so ordered and now they're getting the tools to do it.

I'm sure some would, but I don't think most would. Maybe much of it depends on how they view their duty as Americans.

Would it be enough?

I can't see the cops around here jacking with other Americans to enforce some blatantly unconstitutional order.

Maybe I'm mistaken though or maybe much of it depends on regional attitudes.

I've seen the police depts around here get increasingly militarized, but it seems like only the really big depts that work the inner city get the really bad attitude of an occupying force. In a manner of speaking they kind of are in a way.

I found this series of pics from a post on the interwebz. Seems we've always had a "militarization" of the police. I'm not saying I like it or it means anything. I have yet to meet any police officer/deputy that would do that, even the ones that seem to be the biggest asshats. The vast majority said they wouldn't and would activitly oppose such an order. I think this is inertia from ex-military tranfering over to civilian law enforcement. I think people become familiar with a certain set of tools and gravitate back to those tools. Personally, I don't think the tools of "war" are necessary for policing except for extreme situations.

Sum dood on the interwebz wrote:
"We have all seen the "police militarization" threads where everyone talks about the "good ol days" when the police didn't use machine guns, armored cars, body armor, or use tactics. However most of these people refer back to the forties and fifties era.





I present these for your debunking pleasure:

Full-auto machine guns and an armored bus


Armored car

All those $200 Chicago typewriters. Do want. Isn't that why the main NFA stamp is $200?


I'm against militarization of police. To a degree. Granted, I'm on the enforcement side of the fence, but militarization is maybe the wrong word. Kind of like calling all .mil- looking weapons "assault" weapons. I don't know what word I would use instead though. Anyways, I think people get hung up on the uniforms, tac vests, etc. Most agencies are switching to these uniforms because they are vastly more functional, safer, and efficient than the polyester crap of the '70s. Times and gear change.

Armored vehicles. I feel they have a place in certain high gang infested metro areas like south Florida, L.A, New York, etc. You can come up against some serious gang firepower when conducting various high-risk functions. It's better to roll up to the crack house that's filled with smuggled Venezuelan .mil hardware in something with a bit of armor, versus an E-150 potential cheese box.

However, what I don't like is that DHS is GIVING these vehicles away and ENCOURAGING their usage for everything and anything. I agree with Omega man. It's a guise for pre positioning gear, and softening up the populace to become accustomed to them.

DHS Federal police coming soon.