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Now there's a thought.

The Army could save money by letting civilians buy weapons
systems, and during an emergency we could loan them back
to the Army.

During times of peace, we would still get to play with our
big guns!

The Army could save money by letting civilians buy weapons systems, and during an emergency we could loan them back to the Army.

During times of peace, we would still get to play with our big guns!

Sounds great. We could call it the CDBHS (Civil Defense Big Hardware System). Everyone wants bigger hardware with MORE POWER!. I'd certainly enjoy a tank for the daily commute. Would be expensive to feed gas-wise though. Oh well, it's the price you pay for Bigger and Better toys.

BTW: I can't stand the term "homeland security" sounds like something straight out of the third reicht. We had a perfectly good american phrase, "civil defense", that could have been used.

Actually I've heard worse ideas, but the military has gotten ridiculous about letting surplus into the hands of private individuals, even before 9/11. There's hundreds, maybe thousands, of perfectly good obsolete warbirds rotting in the desert or being scrapped because the Navy and Air Force won't let them into the hands of private collectors who want to restore and fly them. Hey, if somebody's crazy enough to want to buy a surplus F-4 Phantom II off the Navy, why not let them buy it?

The Navy is even suing a private collector who fished a World War II Corsair fighter out of a swamp in North Carolina and started restoring it. Despite the fact that the plane crashed in 1944, and it laid there for fifty years, the Navy wants the salvager to give the plane back, ignoring the ten years of work and thousands of dollars he's put into it...and pay for "damaging" it to boot!

}:-)4