Boston PD to get 200 AR's for the street cop

In case any of you missed it, this morning on the Fox 25 morning news, VB went off about how the Boston PD doesn't need "M16s". I was astonished with how readily he pandered to people's fear...I guess I shouldn't have been, huh?
 
It is the attitude that the citizens have different laws, that the government doesn't have to follow, that makes it tyranny. I am not saying that the rifles have magical powers to turn individual officers into something they aren't.
 
It is the attitude that the citizens have different laws, that the government doesn't have to follow, that makes it tyranny. I am not saying that the rifles have magical powers to turn individual officers into something they aren't.

Well I guess its the end of the world. The government is going to take over our lives, and with their new rifles establish Marshall Law. Let us barricade in the basement with our stocks of food and wait it, and the pending nuclear war out. The end of the world is here. I knew all those conspiracy theory's were true! Not.
 
The end of the world is here. I knew all those conspiracy theory's were true! Not.
I agree with your sentiment, but the reality is that tyranny can happen without any one politician trying to create it...

It often happens slowly over time. Incremental destruction of rights until one day the last step is taken... First, they categorize everyone according to ethnicity. Then you have to carry ID indicating it. Then arm patches and shortly thereafter - camps...

So, conspiracy or not, we need to be on guard for the incremental steps because its often the seemingly benign inroads made by those not intending to become tyrannical that are used later on to disguise the actions of those that are...

Give your favorite benevolent dictator the power to "make it all better" and the guy who comes next abuses it...
 
I feel that statistically these rifles both increase the Saftey AND Danger on the streets. We get more guns, so will those looking to do harm.
Please explain this

As the cops get more weapons and continue to have to cut through red tape to do this, Criminals with intent will always have the upper hand. If they see more police gettin better armor or guns they will get better bullets or weapons.

really????[thinking]
statistically, you're talking about less than 10% of the BPD force with one of these rifles; locked in a cruiser. They won't be carrying them on bike or foot patrol. By the time a SWAT unit gets to the scene 2hrs has gone by.

Do you want to drive up on a liquor store robbery in progress, the BG's have a couple of shotguns, a handgun and , lets say a 10/22. You & partner have your G23's and, while taking continuous fire, have to wait the 90+ minutes for SWAT because you cannot get a good shot off?

What if these assailants had a full auto: Uzi, Glock 18, and AK. Would these AR's really make a difference. Do these What If's justify giving BPD the rifles? What If the Robber has an Airsoft AR and a trigger happy Officer pulls out his REAL black rifle and Kills a sixteen year old.
 
What If the Robber has an Airsoft AR and a trigger happy Officer pulls out his REAL black rifle and Kills a sixteen year old.
[rolleyes] Dead is dead. Doesn't matter what the officer shoots him with.

And if the 16yo is robbing someone with an airsoft AR - the gene pool needed some chlorine. If the weapon could reasonably mistaken for real and the shoot is legit - I will shed no tears...

The only legitimate discussion IMO of tactical "what-ifs" are training. An AR is not the same weapon that you have in a hand-gun. The differences aren't rocket science, but officers should be trained and familiar with any weapon they carry so that it is used in a manner that prevents unintended injury to bystanders (or the perp in the case of "less lethal" weapons).

Other than that - they can have them in their car and I should be able to own them and transport them as well....
 
What if these assailants had a full auto: Uzi, Glock 18, and AK. Would these AR's really make a difference. Do these What If's justify giving BPD the rifles? What If the Robber has an Airsoft AR and a trigger happy Officer pulls out his REAL black rifle and Kills a sixteen year old.

If I'm getting shot at by someone with a full auto AK and I have the choice of brining to the battle a Glock 23 or a Glock 23 and an AR-15, I'll take the AR-15 too. No one's saying it'll be the great gunfight equalizer, just that it'll help even the odds.

Accurate fire is more important in a gunfight than who unloads the most rounds (full auto vs. semi).
 
As the cops get more weapons and continue to have to cut through red tape to do this, Criminals with intent will always have the upper hand. If they see more police gettin better armor or guns they will get better bullets or weapons.

Oh no, let's not provoke the criminals. [thinking]

What if these assailants had a full auto: Uzi, Glock 18, and AK. Would these AR's really make a difference.

Yes. [thinking]

What If the Robber has an Airsoft AR and a trigger happy Officer pulls out his REAL black rifle and Kills a sixteen year old.


Good. Tough shit if you're committing a crime and putting people in fear of their lives.[thinking]

The military would beg to differ on that point[laugh]

I disagree.
 
This was actually one of the justifications for the 5.56 ammunition choice...

Number of rounds fired in an engagement was more of a determining factor in outcome than accuracy...

Modern engagements are indeed shifting more towards precision...

I think you have your logic screwed up. The Vietnam-era trend towards "spray and pray" was a result of the ammunition choice, not a reason for it. That's why M16s have been 3 round burst since the A2 was developed in the late 70s.

Sorry, but you're just wrong. The United States military has always concentrated on accuracy.
 
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I think you have your logic screwed up. The Vietnam-era trend towards "spray and pray" was a result of the ammunition choice, not a reason for it. That's why M16s have been 3 round burst since the A2 was developed in the late 70s.
Not my logic...

I've seen this from multiple sources, but here's the easiest one to find:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle
"In 1948, the Army organized the civilian Operations Research Office (ORO), mirroring similar operations research organizations in the United Kingdom."
....
"They also found that the chance of being hit in combat was essentially random — that is, accurate "aiming" made little difference because the targets no longer sat still. The number one predictor of casualties was the total number of bullets fired.[7]"

Where "7" is:
Ezell, Edward Clinton (1983). Small Arms of the World. New York: Stackpole Books. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0880296014.

Of course we know Wikipedia never gets anything wrong [rofl2]
 
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[pot]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...3/police_add_assault_rifles_across_the_state/

Police add assault rifles across the state
Officials point to terror concerns
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | June 3, 2009

The odds that a local police officer in Massachusetts has access to a military-grade assault rifle, whether in the trunk of a cruiser or at a police station, are far stronger than authorities have previously revealed.

Some 82 cities and towns across the Commonwealth have introduced a total of 1,057 such rifles to their arsenals over the last decade, state public safety officials confirmed yesterday, many of them acquired in recent years in response to the fear of terrorist attacks.

State officials refused to release a list of which cities and towns have deployed what weapons, citing security concerns.

The latest police force to obtain the increased firepower appears to be the MBTA, which just spent $13,000 on a set of semi-automatic assault rifles - 10 Bushmaster, long-range M4s. The T is developing plans to distribute them to transit patrol officers for use in violent emergencies such as terrorist assaults or shooting rampages by individual civilians, transit officials said.

MBTA Police Chief Paul MacMillan said yesterday that he had no intention of deploying the rifles until officers have received adequate training and strict policies are in place for their use. The guns are needed to properly equip frontline officers, who are likely to respond first to a critical emergency, he said.

"We are not going to issue that weapon until we are absolutely sure that we have met all the necessary standards," he said.

MacMillan said that while patrol officers might be asked to use them in the future, the rifles would only be distributed in cases of extreme emergency and not carried around transit stations on a daily basis. He said that is why the public was not told.

"It wouldn't necessarily be standard procedure to inform the public about these specialized weapons that would not be used on routine patrol," he said.

But the T's adoption of the guns is emblematic of a wider proliferation of the weapons in local law enforcement, both in Massachusetts and around the country. The guns are much more powerful and can fire more bullets than typical side arms carried by police officers.

In many cases, distribution of the weapons has expanded from specialized SWAT teams to neighborhood patrol officers, raising questions among community advocates and policy-makers about the safety of citizens and police officers. Mayor Thomas M. Menino, facing criticism last week, rejected the concept of deploying as many as 200 M16s to Boston patrol officers.

Community leaders, surprised by the number of military weapons in use statewide, said they were upset by the lack of public discussion of what they called the apparent "militarization" of local police.

"The very fact community police are being equipped with semi-automatic weapons without a public discussion of the possible political and social implications is unfortunately a major step backwards in terms of Massachusetts' national reputation for promoting progressive law enforcement strategy," said the Rev. Eugene Rivers, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community and co-founder of the Boston Ten-Point Coalition.

Most of the weapons, including Boston's, were acquired free of charge as part of a US Military surplus program. When the military phases out certain weapons in favor of other, or newer, equipment, the leftovers are made available to local police agencies across the United States, according to the agency that oversees the program, the US Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service.

Arms can also be declared surplus when the overall size of military forces decreases, thereby shrinking the number of weapons needed.

Service spokesman Ken MacNevin said federal officials depend on state coordinators to certify communities' need for the rifles and oversee their distribution. He could not immediately provide a list of which Massachusetts communities received what surplus weapons.

A spokesman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety, Michael Coelho, gave the overall numbers of rifles and communities that received them but said releasing more specific information could "prejudice public safety by providing a tactical advantage to would-be criminals and terrorists."

"However, we are reviewing the state's role with regards to this program to ensure effective and appropriate oversight is being applied," he said in a statement.

State officials say that beyond basic requirements such as registering the rifles with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are few regulations that govern how the military's surplus weaponry is used by civilian police departments, with each agency left to determine its own training levels and procedures for the guns' use.

In Boston, police officials first told union leaders they were preparing plans to issue the rifles to dozens of patrol officers who would receive 40 hours of training, according to law enforcement officials quoted last week by the Globe. But the mayor immediately thwarted any plan to issue them to neighborhood officers, and the police commissioner - even though the department had already acquired 200 free rifles from the US military - said he planned to make only about a dozen weapons available to district supervisors.

The MBTA did not get its weapons as part of the military program but instead bought new rifles from the manufacturer with money forfeited during federal drug arrests.

The agency received the guns roughly two months ago and has so far provided patrol officers with four hours of basic training on the weapons. Transit officials do not yet have policies or procedures in place for securing, distributing, or firing the guns in the region's oft-crowded buses, trains, and stations, and says it will not put the guns into service until procedures have been worked out.

Still, the union representing transit patrol officers said it planned to file a grievance today, because it feared its members soon could be asked to use the rifles in the line of duty, despite the lack of procedures and only minimal training.

Union officials said that officers should receive a minimum of 16 hours of training on such high-powered rifles, and that 40 hours is recommended.

"The union's concern is both public and officers' safety," said Doug Louison, lawyer for the MBTA Patrolman's Association. "The concern is that, if called upon to use the weapons, the officers will need to be able to react without wondering how to use the thing. Issuing sophisticated weapons without concern for how they're being utilized is frightening."

Donovan Slack can be reached at [email protected].
 
They're the best because they've got that snake thing on them dont-cha know.
Not only that, but the Mexican government gets them pretty cheap from the US government, so when they are stolen/bribed away by the cartels, its pretty low margin - so the price is right on the retail market... [laugh]
 
So tell me, why do the police need these rifles, yet on the same dangerous streets, the law abiding citizens don't? I'd like to benefit from your superior intelligence.

Are you on something.Police have to go to all the shootouts,civilians have the option of running the other way.People here keep getting confused.I went to thousands of dangerous calls in my career,but none in the last 8 years that I have been retired.I suggest folks throw away all of their violent computer games and come back to reality.Cops are sent to danger,civilians are not.Get it?Geesh ![rofl]
 
Police add assault rifles across the state

Horror of horrors, police across Mass. are gaining access to the firepower needed to prevent a Mumbai attack in Mass. Local police have aquired hundreds of guns that almost everybody on this form already owns one or more of. Religious leaders in Mass. are concerned that Mass is turning into a facist/authoritarian state like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union---wait, they just realized that??

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/03/police_add_assault_rifles_across_the_state/

Police add assault rifles across the state
Officials point to terror concerns
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | June 3, 2009

The odds that a local police officer in Massachusetts has access to a military-grade assault rifle, whether in the trunk of a cruiser or at a police station, are far stronger than authorities have previously revealed.

Some 82 cities and towns across the Commonwealth have introduced a total of 1,057 such rifles to their arsenals over the last decade, state public safety officials confirmed yesterday, many of them acquired in recent years in response to the fear of terrorist attacks.

State officials refused to release a list of which cities and towns have deployed what weapons, citing security concerns.

The latest police force to obtain the increased firepower appears to be the MBTA, which just spent $13,000 on a set of semi-automatic assault rifles - 10 Bushmaster, long-range M4s. The T is developing plans to distribute them to transit patrol officers for use in violent emergencies such as terrorist assaults or shooting rampages by individual civilians, transit officials said.

MBTA Police Chief Paul MacMillan said yesterday that he had no intention of deploying the rifles until officers have received adequate training and strict policies are in place for their use. The guns are needed to properly equip frontline officers, who are likely to respond first to a critical emergency, he said.

"We are not going to issue that weapon until we are absolutely sure that we have met all the necessary standards," he said.

MacMillan said that while patrol officers might be asked to use them in the future, the rifles would only be distributed in cases of extreme emergency and not carried around transit stations on a daily basis. He said that is why the public was not told.

"It wouldn't necessarily be standard procedure to inform the public about these specialized weapons that would not be used on routine patrol," he said.

But the T's adoption of the guns is emblematic of a wider proliferation of the weapons in local law enforcement, both in Massachusetts and around the country. The guns are much more powerful and can fire more bullets than typical side arms carried by police officers.

In many cases, distribution of the weapons has expanded from specialized SWAT teams to neighborhood patrol officers, raising questions among community advocates and policy-makers about the safety of citizens and police officers. Mayor Thomas M. Menino, facing criticism last week, rejected the concept of deploying as many as 200 M16s to Boston patrol officers.

Community leaders, surprised by the number of military weapons in use statewide, said they were upset by the lack of public discussion of what they called the apparent "militarization" of local police.
 
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Community leaders, surprised by the number of military weapons in use statewide, said they were upset by the lack of public discussion of what they called the apparent "militarization" of local police.

Well good morning sunshine![thinking]
 
Thomas said department officials told him they plan to provide officers assigned to carry the rifles with up to 40 hours of training and have them shoot some 2,000 practice rounds to become comfortable firing the weapons.

Right now, he said, most Boston officers are equipped only with 40-caliber pistols that shoot targets at a maximum of 25 yards away.
Obliviously, no one mentioned to the officer at the NES shoot on Sunday that his .40S&W couldn't hit anything on the 50 yard berm that he was shooting at. Maybe Shirley PD gets them "long range" .40s. [rolleyes]

I'm impressed!
Lets see if that really follows through.
When we got ours, it was an 8 hour "Patrol Rifle Orientation" and maybe 200 rounds.
Hmm... 2000 rounds. That'd be just about right for an Appleseed 4 day Rifleman Boot Camp.

But in my humble opinion there are guns that Joe Snuffy dont need....such as the streetsweeper. But then again using that argument Id love a Beretta 93R...and dont really need it. Course that did not stop me from buying a .44 Desert Eagle...no question of need there.... sorry I ramble...gotta go to work.
There's that "need" thing again. Can someone point out to me where that little clause is in the Second Amendment? Hell, boy, I don't NEED an M-1 Garand. It's my RIGHT that I can buy one if I WANT one.

Do try to grasp the difference.
 
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sad [sad2]

i fully believe that the pd should have access to 'assault weapons' for law enforcement. just like I fully believe i should have full access to them for my own personal reasons.

but like always, the sheep see teeth and go running.
 
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