Oops! Police Claim They Have 'No Idea' Where Those Military-Grade Guns Are

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/oops-police-claim-they-have-no-idea-where-those-military-grade-guns-are



It's bad enough that police departments have been armed with military-grade weaponry and other Pentagon cast-offs, which they use against citizens (especially people of color). Now a thorough and jarring investigative piece on Fusion.net has revealed that local police departments are losing these weapons at an alarming rate. Losing them as in, "duh, can't find them anywhere."

Fusion reports that 184 state and local police departments have been suspended from the Pentagon's trickle-down weapons program for losing weapons like M14 and M16 assault rifles, .45-caliber pistols and shotguns. Dunderheaded police departments have even managed to misplace two Humvees. Two Humvees! How do you misplace a Humvee?

That lovely Pentagon 1033 program, which helped bring you the disturbing recent images and events in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as numerous unnecessary SWAT raids and police overreactions around the country, has distributed $4.3 billion worth of weaponry to 8,000 police departments nationwide. The states that boast the most careless police departments in terms of keeping track of those weapons include Mississippi, Arkansas, Arizona, California and Georgia. (That's where one of the Humvees was misplaced. If anyone finds it, please call 1-800-IDIOTS.)

"[The program] is obviously very sloppy, and it's another reason that Congress needs to revisit this promptly," Tim Lynch, director of the CATO Institute's project on criminal justice told Fusion. "We don't know where these weapons are going, whether they are really lost, or whether there is corruption involved."

[RKP5637]

1. This is so F'ed up. What the hell were they thinking when they started arming the

locals with military weapons of destruction. Damn fools. Have they looked in their homes or mom's basement.

[hobbit709]

2. even money says most of those missing items are in the hands of some militia types.

[Volaris]

3. dollars to doughnuts it's not lost,

Some cop said "oh cool...A free military spec shotgun. Guess this is coming home with me, because while someone MIGHT miss it at some point, no one will actually CARE."

[CincyDem]

4. This is the institutional versions of "He's coming to take our guns".

Of course these guns (and humvees and tanks and god knows whatever else) are sitting in grandma's basement behind the furnace (or up in the garage attic or wrapped in an oil cloth in the toolshed out on the farm).

And I'm sure those involved see it as their constitutional right to bear arms trumping their responsibility to be fiscally responsible.

[Recursion]

5. The hell they're "lost" (nt)

[Heidi]

7. That was my first thought.

[Heidi]

6. "How do you misplace a Humvee?"

Now that's a good question. I wonder how many of these items have been illegally sold or traded, rather than simply "lost."

[Earth_First]

8. A similar situation arose in 2012 with the LAPD SWAT team...

They were using their status as SWAT team members and purchased dozens of handguns at significant discounts and resold them to private buyers with the LAPD insignia on them.

The $600 discounted firearms were resold to private buyers for as much as $3500.

http://abc7.com/archive/8790241/

This mention has some striking possibilities in relation to the OP...

[Recursion]

9. It started with drug forfeitures

That got police departments hooked on having cool stuff.

[malaise]

10. So let me repeat my question

How many racist cops are members of RW militias aka 'gangs'?

[safeinOhio]

11. Oath Keepers

gunning up for the big fight.

[99Forever]

12. Yeah but.. yeah but.. yeah but...

.... turrurism ... bad guys .... and that cop brought MILK FFS!


Come on Murcia... mo gunz mo gunz mo gunz.