Posted on 11/21/2008 8:58:25 PM PST by BuckeyeTexan
CHICAGO — Nearly 100 teens marched outside Chicago police headquarters Thursday night to protest the department''s plans to equip officers with semi-automatic rifles, saying the weapons could make the streets more dangerous.
Carrying signs like "Stop the War on Youth," teens said they didn''t trust police with the high-powered weapons and worried gangs would be encouraged to bolster their own arsenals.
"The only people who need these guns are in Iraq," said Arthur McGraw, 19, an organizer with the nonprofit Southwest Youth Collaborative, which organized the rally. "It''ll shoot through brick, car doors. Say your family is in the house eating and there''s some gang violence. When they shoot these [the bullets] can come into your house and shoot your kids."
Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Thursday that though police have ordered and received some of the guns, police are not yet using them. Their use will be phased in over the next three years.
In April police Supt. Jody Weis said he wanted to equip all of the department''s officers with the high-powered weapons as part of an overall crime-fighting strategy, arguing that officers are outgunned on the streets. Officers currently carry pistols, and only SWAT officers carry rifles, M4 carbines.
Mayor Richard Daley publicly backed Weis'' plan, saying the rifles would put officers on equal footing with armed gangs and criminals.
“Wow. Those bullets come into your house and shoot your kids. I better put my bullets under lockdown so they do not get out of the ammo cans and shoot my kids.”
Don’t ever leave your bullets and your SUV together with out supervision, you never know what mischief they may cook up.
...... "The only people who need these guns are in Iraq,"
Seems like I've heard this before
Nice to know kids aren’t very well taught in school.
The rifles are for the team to protect Obama’s house and to assist the USSS.
ESPN the Magazine had a story on athletes a year after Sean Taylor’s death...EVERY one of the athletes now carries a gun...hmmmm, weird...yet no one will say anything bad...I am glad they do, they have the right to and should be able to defend themselves if some idiot tries to get in their grill etc...
man, some youth are so brainwashed...yuck...they can go to Cuba, no one has guns there, maybe that would make them feel “safer”...
Here’s an idea. Let’s totally disarm the police. That’ll encourage the gangs to disarm too.
In reality, life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. Gang-bangers are society’s pieces of crap and should be dealt with harshly. If their parents would do it sooner the police wouldn’t have to. When I was a kid my parents whipped my butt and I learned my lesson.
Kids, help prevent child abuse. Obey your parents.
Again - the police should not have any arms that are denied to the general population.
If the cops feel *they* need weapons to defend themselves, the citizenry’s need must be even greater.
Obama / Biden - 52%
McCain / Palin - 48%
Asked and answered...
I agree completely. The brain-washed child is the problem.
When the suspects are wearing body armor or have modified their vehicle to resist pistol calibers.
If you think people get upset when a cop makes a good shoot on a bad guy, wait until a child gets killed by a police ricochet or over-penetration by an assault rifle.
Definitely a risk, and I would assume the reason the rifles were generally confined to SWAT before.
Could police misfortune/misuse be used as an excuse to remove semi-autos from the landscape? Sure.
Police posession of these firearms might even be seen as the reason gangs have even better, more capable arms.
No matter what happens, the libs will find a way to use it against gunowners, and this might be as set-up all the way.
I only hope the police are aware of that and act carefully.
In related news:
Chicago burglars protest home owners and apartment dwellers locking their doors.
Film at 11.
Then ya better start snitch' on your homies, dawg. Keep the gangs out of da hood, yo.
“When they shoot these [the bullets] can come into your house and shoot your kids.”
and that has everything to do with the way the action gets cycled. what logic.
I didn't, and boy did I ever live to regret it.
How was I to know that the pit bull I left in charge of them was the ring leader? I would have sworn it was the SUV that was the real rogue....
In a way, that's good.
What they haven't learned makes them easier to take out.
Here's the SwYC's website.
I seem to remember reading something similar when British police started being routinely armed at airports twenty years ago, there was much ado about the sight of policemen strolling around Heathrow with Heckler & Koch submachine guns (or assault rifles, I’m not a gun owner so I don’t know the exact description of the weapons).
Someone pointed out that in the wide open spaces of airport concourses with their marble and glass fixtures the cops would pose more of a threat than any terrorist if they opened fire with those weapons as the rounds would be sprayed everywhere and ricochet all over the place. What was required in such an environment was a pistol or revolver firing aimed single shots with soft point ammo (again I stress I’m no expert) to take out the bad guy(s) but the cops preferred the “macho” look of the H&K’s.
So the gang-bangers are upset that the cops will get varmint rifles.
Just imagine what would happen if an SUV got ahold of one of these...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.