These are not American Soldiers. They are Police Officers at the Ferguson Missouri protests. |
In response to Obama's announcement, the police labor union, the Fraternal Order of Police stated that the White House plan to restrict local police forces’ ability to acquire military-style gear was Obama’s way of "politicizing officers’ safety."
Fact is, police departments do not need these items to function proficiently. Besides, how can any department truly rationalize having weapons used to conduct war fighting?
If you are wondering what do I know about this subject on a first hand basis? Well last year I wrote about the Militarization of Federal Law Enforcement agencies and my initial first hand experience.
The police officers were there for an introduction to Urban Warfare and Weapons Familiarization training. Most, if not all, volunteered for their department's SWAT teams. None were Federal law enforcement, all were police officers and sheriffs deputies from the Southern California area.
The term "para-military" is used to describe a group of civilians organized in a military fashion. Please understand, none of those attending the training were military personnel. They were not Soldiers or Marines, they were Cops.
Though roughly organized in a military fashion, the mission of law enforcement is "to protect and serve." Certainly not close with and kill as is the mission of a Marine rifleman in combat.
Yes, the mission of the Marine Corps rifle squad, which they were there that day to learn from, is "to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver and/or repel enemy assault by fire and close combat." Yes, to find and kill the enemy.
At the time, I was an Instructor and volunteered to be there for the day. As I stated in the article last year, the day turned out a lot differently that I thought it would.
I remember a fellow Instructor, another Marine Sgt. calling them, "amateurs" and "wannabes." Another referred to them as "mistakes waiting to happen!" I remember not really knowing what to think of those guys other than not caring for their "know-it-all" attitudes.
It was a day when they were there to get a crash course, a one day course, on Urban Warfare. After spending the first half of the day in the classroom, then went to the range for their "FAM Fire" -- also known as familiarization fire -- with small arms, all weapons which were used in a Marine Rifle Squad at the time.
Again, if my memory is correct, on the range, the officers were all there to learn to safely handle and FAM fire the M1911A1 (.45 ACP) semi-automatic pistol, the M14 (7.62mm) rifle in semi-automatic fire, the M16A1 (5.56mm) rifle in semi-automatic and fully automatic rates of fire.
We used to joke about cops being bad shots, and on that day we found out that most didn't know the basics of tactics, or the use of their weapons, or as far as that goes weapons safety. But friends, you couldn't tell them that. We were there to teach and they were there to learn, but many of us soon felt that they saw us as just taking up their time.
Fire Control relates to a leader's ability to adjust fire onto a target, to shift all or part of the fire from one target to another, and to regulate the rate of fire. It has everything to do with having your men commence and/or cease fire at the instant you want them to for an array of reasons.
Fire Control and Fire Discipline is what us who were in the infantry trained at everyday. And yes, as you can tell, this is the complete opposite of the "spray and pray" firing technique of choice in Hollywood movies.
The shocking thing for me that day was my seeing was how they acted with the weapons that they FAM fired. They acted as if they were more like toys than weapons for war fighting.
And yes, I see the same attitude today. These days with the acquisition of military equipment that they are getting from the Federal Government, department act as though they are toys that they can't wait to acquire and use in some situation against citizens.
Let's face facts, while federal government agencies have a combined domestic para-military force almost as large as the entire United States Marine Corps, states and city departments are gearing up like never before.
And the question becomes, "Why? Where is the need for such equipment? Where is the justification?" Homicides are at a 40 year low, and law enforcement officer shooting at the lowest since 1887. The FBI crime statistics show that violent crime is actually down to the lowest its been in more than 30 years.
If that's the case, than why the soldier mentality? Why do we need modern American Police State? How can anyone justify the militarization of city and county law enforcement officers?
I do know how it started. It started right after the fall of the Soviet Union's Communist empire when there was something called the "Peace Dividend."
I remember this well because I was working for a Defense Contractor at the time and many of our contract were canceled. In fact many of the Defense Contractors at the time were told, that after almost 50 years of building arms and equipment for our military, they had to retool or find other customers.
The 1033 program was created by the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1997 as part of the U.S. Government's Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services (DLA). The 1033 program was created to transfer "excess" military equipment to law enforcement agencies.
So today, whether it's the DEA, or ICE, or our county sheriffs, the most common use today is a forced unannounced entry into homes across America. And yes, in many instances, masked!
Besides trying to justify the use of military equipment as being a safety concern, another attempt at rationalizing the use of military weapons and tactics on domestic soil seems obvious when we look no further than the recent hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers after the Boston Marathon bombings. But folks, what the Tsarnaev brothers did is not the norm. That wasn't a routine situation.
Today, thousands of police departments nationwide have recently acquired stun grenades, armored tanks, counterattack vehicles, and all sorts of other para-military equipment, much of it purchased with asset-forfeiture funds.
As one report put it, "today, even that number seems impossibly low, with one annual count of combat-style home raids hovers around 80,000 a year." Yes, that number is 80,000 a year.
Yes, these raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors -- but more importantly, the raids themselves terrorize innocents, especially when these law enforcement units mistakenly target the wrong residence.
We need to ask ourselves if this is what we want from law enforcement? Do we want a Police State? Do we need law enforcement using SWAT tactics to do their "police work?" Do we want law enforcement to act like the military and simply use deadly force and shot to kill in every instance like our military, or do we want police officers and deputies who shot to disable and arrest suspects?
I stated this last year, and I will say it again. Back some 40 years ago, after that day of dealing with police officers and sheriff's deputies, I remember my Gunny Sgt. who put things this way.
He said, "These guys don't know if they want to be cops or soldiers. Most of these guys see themselves as soldiers when they're supposed to be cops."
He was right, local police on law enforcement missions are not soldiers. And frankly, they should not be equipped or resemble soldiers. From bloused boots to military style so-called tactical fatigues, while not of a caliber of the United States Marine Corps, more and more police departments are indeed attempting to adopt the persona of wannabe soldiers.
If they wanted to be in America's military, they should have joined our military and found out what being professional soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is really all about -- including the low pay, long hours, and no labor union to pitch a fit whenever they feel the need. Civilian law enforcement is just that: Civilians! They can dress and play military no different than other wannabes.
Power like this, used among our civilians is dangerous. But thank God that right now the use of military equipment is being checked.
And as we can see by the pushback from people like the Police Union leader James Pasco, one can see that there are those who see nothing wrong with militarizing police departments. As scary and anti-American as it is, there are those in law enforcement today who want to militarize their departments even further.
While I support traditional law enforcement, I refuse to support snipers atop IED resistant armored personnel carriers scanning a crowd of Americans,
And yes, that's just the way I see it.