Why do the police have tanks?

[dmancornell]

Oh, sure. Just legalize drugs and the gangsters will stand down and go get jobs and become good citizens. Legalize drugs and all of the meth heads will just stay home and stay high...........and only rape and torture their own kids and nobody elses. And all of the tweaking motorcycle gangs will just become riding clubs again and bother nobody, uh-huh. All of the crackheads will become so docile when they are literally burning out their brains with unlimited supply, and their families won't care. And all of the children of the catatonic potheads will grow up strong and healthy after surviving repeated food poisonings from their own filthy homes. Whoopie. Anybody who advocates for drug legalization is either an addict or has never known any to any degree. Sure, a few sound individuals can use a little pot or coke recreationally without obvious problem. For a while. Until they can't. And then they become a burden on their families and on society, an expensive burden which eventually becomes a social worker problem and then a police problem.

Why do the police need armor, and hard-core courage? Because lousy criminals KILL THEM. I can't remember the figure but about three hundred police officers are killed in the line of duty every year---not counting the hundreds of suicides from stress and its attendant alcoholism.

I should move? I have moved, and I guard my current luxury of a peaceful neighborhood very jealously! Yet I can never forget my past homes in terrorized neighborhoods, the people living in aching fear of the random violence and cruelty of the gangsters: working folks afraid to ride the bus, old folks who dare not go out, and children that cannot even play in their own front yards---and worst of all the anxiety that their own children will be sucked into the violent "glamour" of the gangster livestyle. All you proud anti-cop "patriots" have never lived with the casual violence of gangsters hurting strangers randomly just for fun, getting high on the money from the purse they just snatched from an old lady, and after dark they will drive around and shoot into houses. It's tempting to say that I hope that you get to know that personally, but that would mean that the Northwest will go even more downhill, and I'd hate to see it. So, why don't YOU guys move to where the cops can't go without armored vehicles and see how your views on cops stand up?.......................elsullo

Translation:

I'm a dumb statist who actually believes the government and police protect me from crackheads, tweakers, gangbangers, drug runners, zetas, and n*ggers. The drug war is a glorious battle against the undesirables and subhumans in society. If I ever get no-knock raided by SWAT I'll let them stomp on my face. Sieg heil.

Anyways, here's some real data on a country that actually did decriminalize drugs: http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf

Look ma, actual evidence instead of scaremongering!

Also LOL @ catatonic potheads. The marijuana users I know all have graduate degrees and make 6 figure salaries. Admittedly they are not the norm, but then again, neither is the scenario you're painting. Do you even know any drug users or do you just regurgitate everything you get from those lame anti-drug TV ads?

 

[elsullo]

My apologies to all for overestimating the number of police killed on the job. Just a little research tells that over the last twenty years the average number of on the job police deaths is ONLY about 150 per year; 65,000 were assaulted per year; 23,000 injured seriously. In 2010 it was only 56 killed by FBI stats, all but one shot, but now in 2011 that number has already been surpassed as of July 1. They say things are getting meaner out there. Here in Portland a police officer was shot just six blocks from me a couple of months ago. Yes, some cops over-react and when sent into "combat" shoot first in fear of getting shot. Mistakes are made in bloody wars, and there is collateral damage---but nowhere as much as the drug gangs cause. Monday morning quarterbacks will always analyze what went wrong, comfortable at their keyboard and free from the "fog of war," and free from the immediate fear of getting their face shot off.

As for bikers, what motorcyclist has not encounterd "outlaw" biker gangs? You have never met with cranked-out meth bikers and their scags? Lucky you, you must be a teetotaler and avoid beer! I am alive today only because my Triumph was always faster than those crappy Harleys.

Knowing dopers and druggies? To my shame I used drugs for eighteen years. I was "intimately" involved with the drug trade, growing, transporting, dealing, and grubbing around in the filthy homes of my clients and friends, full of neglected and damaged children. Yes, I have seen it, to my sorrow. Fortunately I could never afford to become much of a coke-head, or it would have simply killed me. My life never actually began until I quit drugs a few decades ago, and I only survived because I never got into needles---even I was not THAT dumb. Yes, I know more about drugs than the average bear. I am VERY aware of how dangerous and destructive that whole culture is. Funny, all that anti-drug propaganda we were fed in high school---almost all of it turned out to be true. And now the police need armor plate to survive the battle, alas, because all of those harmless druggies tend to shoot at the police to protect their stash and lifestyle.......................elsullo

 

[dmancornell]

Mistakes are made in bloody wars, and there is collateral damage---but nowhere as much as the drug gangs cause. Monday morning quarterbacks will always analyze what went wrong, comfortable at their keyboard and free from the "fog of war," and free from the immediate fear of getting their face shot off.

Knowing dopers and druggies? To my shame I used drugs for eighteen years. I was "intimately" involved with the drug trade, growing, transporting, dealing, and grubbing around in the filthy homes of my clients and friends, full of neglected and damaged children. Yes, I have seen it, to my sorrow.

 

[Sasquatchvnv]

As for bikers, what motorcyclist has not encounterd "outlaw" biker gangs? You have never met with cranked-out meth bikers and their scags? Lucky you, you must be a teetotaler and avoid beer! I am alive today only because my Triumph was always faster than those crappy Harleys.

I'm not going to get sucked into this - I can't help but wonder what kind of dime store novels you have been reading. Just trust me when I say that I understand bikers and clubs from first-hand experience.

 

[RB87]

This is why the police have tanks, to fight these scofflaws and their dirty gardens:

<broken link removed>

A misdemeanor charge and the DA is planning on throwing the book at her. Stop the world, I wanna get off.

 

[Redcap]

I'm not going to get sucked into this - I can't help but wonder what kind of dime store novels you have been reading. Just trust me when I say that I understand bikers and clubs from first-hand experience.

He doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground. Don't waste your energy typing to fools like him.

 

[elsullo]

Hey, I actually MET Charlie Manson in early 1967. It was on Haight Street in San Francisco, in front of Tracy's Donuts, the Hells Angels hangout and crystal meth bazaar. He was reverentially introduced to me as some kind of up-and-coming folk singer, but I could tell he was just a dead-end con. My overall psychic aura reading of him was, "dusty." But all this is beyond your experience and so could not possibly be true, right?........................elsullo

 

[RB87]

YouTube - &#x202a;Police Officers What Real Terrorists in America Look Like Cops&#x202c;&rlm;

» Man Arrested for Filming Police from His Own Yard Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

This is not winning hearts and minds...

 

[Buddhalux]

Maybe because some of us were smart enough to either move or change the neighborhood? Since you want to throw out numbers, how about how many citizens are killed every year by LEO's? Then maybe you'll understand why peoples support for LEOs is waning to the point of non-existance.

 

[Redcap]

Hey, I actually MET Charlie Manson in early 1967. It was on Haight Street in San Francisco, in front of Tracy's Donuts, the Hells Angels hangout and crystal meth bazaar. He was reverentially introduced to me as some kind of up-and-coming folk singer, but I could tell he was just a dead-end con. My overall psychic aura reading of him was, "dusty." But all this is beyond your experience and so could not possibly be true, right?........................elsullo

 

[HollisOR]

Cops do not need tanks, it does not fit into their line of work. The US Army and Marines have plenty of them and it fits into their line of work. A armored car is another thing. Most Agencies have mutual aid, so if the state has one or two, those would be available if they are ever needed by any other agency. Cops are not combat troops, even SWAT is not combat troops. We have our military if we need combat troops. Soldiers do not make good cops just as cops do not make good soldiers.

If I lived in Mexico, well the Mexican Army and Marines are being utilized, the cops are still cops.

A situation arises, the cops seal off the area and wait. Sooner or later it ends with our the use of war equipment.

LE agencies that I know of are very short funded and short handed just doing basic LE stuff, they do not have the man power, time or money to play soldier.

 

[iusmc2002]

My story is better than yours! So there! That dude has been everywhere and done everything
What a troll!

Love the pic!!!

 

[dmancornell]

LE agencies that I know of are very short funded and short handed just doing basic LE stuff, they do not have the man power, time or money to play soldier.

Tell that to these keystone cops: YouTube - &#x202a;Jose Guerena SWAT Raid Video From Helmet Cam&#x202c;&rlm;

 

[HollisOR]

Tell that to these keystone cops: YouTube - &#x202a;Jose Guerena SWAT Raid Video From Helmet Cam&#x202c;&rlm;

Need to tell that to who ever their boss is. If It is a city council......... The need to fix it, or they get fired.

Were I live, rural area, small cities and none of them have a swat team. Big city and big city politics.

 

[Garg]

I blame Chuck Norris.
Or the movie Die Hard.

 

[Scott]

Well in the beginning of the story it is scary because you have untrained idiots throwing flashbangs at a baby girl and then put a bullet in her throat. There is no excuse for that in America period. I bet the unions protected his *** and he got a promotion.

These are untrained people using equipment most don't know how to use and taking the words of a crack head. What a shame and I am sick of hearing how hard police have it. Most could not even pass a pt test much less run 2 blocks.

Police are over zealous and to eager to react and they should have better rules of engagement..............

Let me have police lovers and how good they, how many crimes they prevent, how they know how to handle people, how they treat people with respect, and so on.

I say send them to Iraq for a year and then learn and then see how easy they have it and how well they are paid and making states go broke.

 

[HollisOR]

Scott, you nailed it when you stated "Untrained people".

Not all cops are over anything, probably over weight if they are over 30. The cops that I know have a lot of paper work ahead of them when they start their shift. Benefits of living rural and with small cities, we don't have all the big city bs.

BTW, a lot of cops are recruited from the military. Then they get fat, secretary spread.

To be clear, just like any group there are those who should not be cops, there are cops who should be locked up, but that is not the majority because chances are, most people never meet them or hear of them via some media source. Jerks always stand out.

The other aspect, they are people. That means we have to blame the guy/gal who invented the bell shape curve for human behavior. Does not matter what group, there will always be someone who will make the group look very bad.

 

[jvbutter]

classic... and so fitting

 

[JungleBoy]

Oh, sure. Just legalize drugs and the gangsters will stand down and go get jobs and become good citizens. Legalize drugs and all of the meth heads will just stay home and stay high...........and only rape and torture their own kids and nobody elses. And all of the tweaking motorcycle gangs will just become riding clubs again and bother nobody, uh-huh. All of the crackheads will become so docile when they are literally burning out their brains with unlimited supply, and their families won't care. And all of the children of the catatonic potheads will grow up strong and healthy after surviving repeated food poisonings from their own filthy homes. Whoopie. Anybody who advocates for drug legalization is either an addict or has never known any to any degree. Sure, a few sound individuals can use a little pot or coke recreationally without obvious problem. For a while. Until they can't. And then they become a burden on their families and on society, an expensive burden which eventually becomes a social worker problem and then a police problem.

Why do the police need armor, and hard-core courage? Because lousy criminals KILL THEM. I can't remember the figure but about three hundred police officers are killed in the line of duty every year---not counting the hundreds of suicides from stress and its attendant alcoholism.

I should move? I have moved, and I guard my current luxury of a peaceful neighborhood very jealously! Yet I can never forget my past homes in terrorized neighborhoods, the people living in aching fear of the random violence and cruelty of the gangsters: working folks afraid to ride the bus, old folks who dare not go out, and children that cannot even play in their own front yards---and worst of all the anxiety that their own children will be sucked into the violent "glamour" of the gangster livestyle. All you proud anti-cop "patriots" have never lived with the casual violence of gangsters hurting strangers randomly just for fun, getting high on the money from the purse they just snatched from an old lady, and after dark they will drive around and shoot into houses. It's tempting to say that I hope that you get to know that personally, but that would mean that the Northwest will go even more downhill, and I'd hate to see it. So, why don't YOU guys move to where the cops can't go without armored vehicles and see how your views on cops stand up?.......................elsullo

YouTube - &#x202a;Ron Paul vs. Morton Downey, Jr.&#39;s audience 1988&#x202c;&rlm;

Sorry could not resists

 

[coastal steelheader]

Does nobody here remember armored motorcycle gang "clubhouses" full of drugs and stolen weapons, that needed to be raided with armored cars to pull the bars off the windows and ram down the bulletproof doors---even here in Portland? Some of these biker gangs have used car bombs and in Europe have used RPGs on civilians! Nobody remembers the LA gangster drug houses reinforced with steel plate and surrounded with high iron fences and pitbulls that needed an armored half-track to bust in the steel doors? LA is full of gang member SNIPERS that keep police out of their territory without an armored vehicle. There are whole neighborhoods where the police dare not go and the residents live in terror and slavery, where the gangs rule.
!

I can remember when the Portland PD used their armored vehicles against the Gypsy Jokers to enter their hardened clubhouse and ended up paying for it in court later.
I'm not saying the 1% crowd are a bunch of boy scouts but their actual danger to the public has been overblown for years by funding happy federal law enforcement agencies who have made big claims for years but rarely come up with arrests to back those claims.

Back to topic - why do cops have tanks? Probably cause the feds pay for them. Take away the federal money and you take away most of the unneeded toys.