TYT: Sheriff: If You Take My Tank People Will Die

[WhoIsNumberNone]

The federal government has had a program that allows local police departments to acquire military equipment and vehicles at a discounted rate. Since there has been issues with police using excessive force on civilians and peaceful protests, the government is trying to roll that program back. One sheriff in Florida is not happy about that decision. Ana Kasparian (The Point), Margaret Howell (The Lip TV), comedian Kerry Coddett (Comedy Central, MTV2) and hosts of The Young Turks discuss.

Do local police departments need armored vehicles like this? Will Volusia County be in more danger because their armored personnel carrier is gone? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more here: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/florida-sheriff-furious-obama-took-his-military-tank-away-people-will-die-because-of-this-decision/

“Police in Florida are complaining that the Obama Administration is recalling military-style tanks that many have complained made American city streets look like foreign war zones during unrest in places like Ferguson, Missouri last year.

Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson said losing an M113 — an armored personnel carrier — will result in some of his officers going on “suicide missions,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.”

[procon]

1. Who is the enemy that this sheriff needs a tank to fight?

Us?
The citizens of his community?
Only the citizens of color in his community?
Kids with rocks?
People with protest signs?
Citizens with cameras?
The press?
Legal observers?


Do any of them also have tanks?

[Geronimoe]

2. He needs the tank

to pat down grandma and grandpa before they take a fight to visit grandchildren.

Amerikan exceptionalism.

[sulphurdunn]

3. I didn't know cops went on 'missions'

suicidal or otherwise. I thought their job was keep the peace, not destroy the enemy.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Change the slogan on the cop cars from "To protect and serve" to "Peace through strength"....

That's the attitude.

[1monster]

4. That's just horse puckey! Even Duval County, 100 miles up the road

doesn't need tanks, and a to hear the daily crime reports, you'd think you were in Crime Central there.

Volusia County! Vote that man OUT. Get someone who sees himself as part of YOUR community, not some kind of totalitarian war god who was sent to occupy your town.

[Turbineguy]

5. Sheriff,

go back to your desk, turn on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and relax.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Like I've said, they didn't sell military surplus to local cops after WWII.

[sulphurdunn]

8. After WWII, there were millions

of returning veterans who were educated and enlisted into the middle class to help fight the Cold War. A police state would have been counterproductive. Things began to change rapidly when we knew we were going to win that war in the 1980s. A large and prosperous middle class was no longer needed, a police state was. After 2001, a militarized police state became the new model.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Right. After the fall of the Soviet Union they didn't need a middle class anymore...

They knew getting rid of it would be a slow process over several generations or it would result in a popular uprising.

I guess after they took us to war based on lies and got away with it they realized the public would passively accept most anything and they accelerated their timetable.

The contrast from the 70s is startling. I remember a typical factory worker that didn't even have a high school degree was able to make enough to buy a house and a new car every three to five years and have a stay at home wife and three kids and go on vacation once a year. Mind you, it wasn't to Paris but still...

These days that same job may require "some college" and only pays enough to rent a room in someone else's house and drive an old rusted out clunker with no muffler.

Assuming it hasn't been outsourced.

[tclambert]

10. The sheriff absolutely needs two tanks since they won't let him have a battleship.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

11. Those "tanks" are actually APCs

Much more lightly armed and armored than actual tanks, they are designed to carry infantry into combat zones. Their armor is only sufficient to repel shrapnel and small arms fire. They are neither designed, nor equipped to take on an actual tank. Why, a perp equipped with a real tank, even one of World War II vintage, could easily overcome his department's entire armored force. What are they supposed to do then, huh? Wait for the Feds to come to the rescue like they did at Benghazi? Huh?