Domestic Military

A recent New York Times article "Officer Friendly, in a Tank? War Gear Flows to Local Police" by Matt Apuzzo examines the increasing amount of military grade weaponry and equipment being acquired by American police forces. Due to the ramping down of the wars abroad, the Pentagon has a significant surplus of weaponry and equipment piling up. The military could choose to stockpile these arms in military armories or potentially a more noble approach would be to destroy the surplus arms. However, the Pentagon has another idea in mind on how to reduce their surplus of military arms. Instead of stockpiling or destroying them, the Pentagon can disseminate these arms and equipment to domestic police forces across the nation.

These military arms and equipment being acquired by domestic police forces nationwide range from military grade assault rifles, silencers, and expanded capacity magazines to land-mine resistant troop transports and other armored equipment. Potentially more surprising than the types of equipment and weaponry handed out to state and local police departments is the alarming number of them. Since 2006 domestic police forces have received at least 90,000 military grade assault rifles (both 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm), 180,000 oversized magazines (capacities ranging from 30 to 100 rounds), and 45,000 military grade night vision optics (rifle optics among other types of binoculars and goggles). In terms of equipment, at least 850 armored military vehicles and 530 military aircraft have made their way in to municipal garages and hangers across the nation.

This increasing armament of domestic police with military hardware is not necessarily viewed by all as a necessity. There is naturally apprehension by some to arming police officers with tactical gear. Small town municipalities having a "need" for armored military vehicles has raised some local eyebrows in a number of towns nationwide. When a police official in Indiana was asked to justify the need for a newly acquired armor vehicles his response was cryptic to say the least. He justified the need for the armored vehicles as a response to the potential for domestic terror attacks by war veterans returning home with knowledge of I.E.D explosives and tactical combat. If we truly need to be afraid of our own returning veterans then it is a good thing we have a domestic military to protect us. One does not need to be a returning veteran to be offended by the ignorant statements of this police official. It just goes to show that people with official power can do whatever unnecessary actions they deem required by simply invoking people's fear of extremely unlikely and isolated attacks.