Why Do Police Need So Much Military Equipment?

Establishment Newspaper Openly Questions Why Police Need So Much Military Equipment

From: Survival Joe

The extreme left-leaning New York Times recently published an article calling attention to the massive stockpiles of used military equipment being hoarded by local police departments.

Typically, the New York Times is quite friendly to most of the government’s actions.

In fact, the paper often serves as the mouthpiece for establishment administrations, always content to work an angle that makes the erosion of valuable American freedoms seem more palatable than it really is.

But the article they wrote raised questions about the massive amount of used military equipment that is making its way into the hands of local police departments.

As the New York Times notes:

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

The numbers are startling. Across the nation local police departments have picked up:

• 435 armored vehicles
• 44,900 night vision pieces
• 533 Aircraft
• 93,763 machine guns
• 180,718 magazines (minus ammunition)

And the numbers continue to grow.

The reason so much military equipment is making it into service in quaint little towns like Neenah, Wisconsin and Walsh County, North Dakota is because of a special program created back in the early 1990s called “the military transfer program.”

This program allowed for the free transfer of military equipment into the inventory of small municipal police departments so they could help to fight against growing threats of drug-fueled violence and turbo-charged gang warfare.

But now, those problems don’t exist.

As the New York Times openly admits, crime is at a generational low. The threat of domestic terrorism is significantly smaller than it was back in the 60s and 70s, and the need for advanced weapon systems is not nearly as pressing as it seemed to be in the early 1990s.

The New York Times also observed that many of the townships only took the equipment because it’s given to them free by the military.

Some have even used federal grant money to purchase advanced military equipment.

The Times seems to believe that the reason the police are acquiring this equipment is in order to protect themselves.

As Neanah police Chief Kevin E. Wilkinson said: ”I don’t like it. I wish it were the way it was when I was a kid… (but) we’re not going to go out there as Officer Friendly with no body armor and just a handgun and say good enough.”

But as the police gain access to more weapons and more equipment, they’ve also become more aggressive and far more trigger-happy than they ever were in the past.

Though the New York Times stopped short of denouncing the government’s actions, they certainly did their part to bring attention to the unsettling militarization of police forces across the country.

My comments: An obvious possibility for all this is Preparation for a US Financial System collapse and the implementation of Martial Law?