I don’t get why people are fine with arming the police with military hardware like MRAPs.
Their whole job is to control the civilian population and people want to arm them with the means to drive into a house and start unloading on the residents within?
They’re a right-wing paramilitary force; we should be limiting their reach instead of giving them armor and quad-damage power-ups.
They kinda make sense in america, it’s a readily available off-road capable transport that can survive pretty much anything civilians throw at it (including the A in MRAP), and there’s already a production line going. A civilian armored car would do the job too but I suspect there’s lobbying/insider trading involved. That and their cops are paranoid as fuck and would rather overspend than risk getting a scratch.
People are fine with it for the same reason they ignore privacy violations. “I’ve got nothing to hide” = “I won’t break any laws”, therefore it’s never their problem.
MRAPs for police departments are usually scraps thrown away by the military. They tend to he in terrible shape when the military ditches them, so the “free” armored vehicles end up costing a fuckton on money to repair and maintain.
A civilian armored car would do the job too but I suspect there’s lobbying/insider trading involved.
Police departments used to do that but someone noticed that while Police Departments were spending money on armored vehicles the military was throwing them away. It was a waste of money all around and so the LESO / 1033 Program was born out of the National Defense Authorization Act of 90/91 and then expanded and made permanent in 1997. (Remember that year, it’s important).
The program actually makes good fiscal sense. Why waste equipment when one branch of Government no longer needs something while another one does.
A big impetus for police departments participating in the program that many people online today weren’t alive for was the North Hollywood Shootout in 1997. A couple of Bank Robbers carrying full auto weapons and wearing body armor tore the shit out of the Hollywood PD because the Police Department didn’t have the equipment or guns to deal with the problem.
In the end they had to use hunting rifles taken from a nearby civilian gunstore and a commandeered armored car. Every Cop in the country was scared shitless that it would happen to them because almost no departments were equipped for that level of violence. So they started grabbing surplus IFVs (MRAPs now) and other gear from the 1033 program.
As time went on and the “Warrior Cop” mentality took hold, primarily from Police Departments hiring untold numbers of returning Gulf War & GWOT Veterans, those Vets pushed to expand their departments use of the 1033 program so they could have access to most of the same gear they were already used to using.
That’s how we got to where we are in 2025. Each individual step makes sense but the outcome of those cumulative decisions is increasingly problematic.
Because of things like the North Hollywood Shootout. People don’t want a situation where the criminals have much better weapons than the police. It doesn’t matter that that kind of a situation is incredibly rare. People are scared and want police to never be outgunned.
Of course, that results in a bad situation where the cops in say Fluffy Landing, Florida have an armoured personnel carrier and don’t need one. And, they get to train SWAT tactics just in case, but they never need those skills. And eventually when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so they use their APC for a regular arrest just because they want to justify having it, and they want to use their cool new toy.
It does vaguely make sense to have a SWAT team, especially in a big city in the USA. A sovereign state is basically defined by having a monopoly on the use of force within its own borders. If the bad guys (ACAB, but you know what I mean) can outgun the cops, then it can lead to chaos.
Also, politicians need to be seen as tough on crime to get elected. If you increase police funding, you’re safe. If you cut police funding and there’s some kind of incident, you can easily lose your next election.
In the US, there’s no effective civilian control over police. Sure, theoretically the cops answer to the mayor or something. But, police unions are extremely powerful, and so mostly the cops get to do whatever they want.
Yeah the state of ohio having a swat team and even some armored vehicles is somewhat reasonable. Ohio State University’s police department on the other hand should not have an Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier.
But also, if it gets to the point that we need to bust out the automatic weapons and shit, maybe an elected member of the state government should be approving and leading.
I mostly agree. The one thing I’ll say is that police departments weren’t specifically ordering MRAPs. It’s more that the military had a lot of spares that were otherwise going to be mothballed or destroyed. In some ways it’s efficient to reuse military materials like that. But, there are obviously downsides too.
I don’t get why people are fine with arming the police with military hardware like MRAPs.
Their whole job is to control the civilian population and people want to arm them with the means to drive into a house and start unloading on the residents within?
They’re a right-wing paramilitary force; we should be limiting their reach instead of giving them armor and quad-damage power-ups.
They kinda make sense in america, it’s a readily available off-road capable transport that can survive pretty much anything civilians throw at it (including the A in MRAP), and there’s already a production line going. A civilian armored car would do the job too but I suspect there’s lobbying/insider trading involved. That and their cops are paranoid as fuck and would rather overspend than risk getting a scratch.
People are fine with it for the same reason they ignore privacy violations. “I’ve got nothing to hide” = “I won’t break any laws”, therefore it’s never their problem.
MRAPs for police departments are usually scraps thrown away by the military. They tend to he in terrible shape when the military ditches them, so the “free” armored vehicles end up costing a fuckton on money to repair and maintain.
Police departments used to do that but someone noticed that while Police Departments were spending money on armored vehicles the military was throwing them away. It was a waste of money all around and so the LESO / 1033 Program was born out of the National Defense Authorization Act of 90/91 and then expanded and made permanent in 1997. (Remember that year, it’s important).
The program actually makes good fiscal sense. Why waste equipment when one branch of Government no longer needs something while another one does.
A big impetus for police departments participating in the program that many people online today weren’t alive for was the North Hollywood Shootout in 1997. A couple of Bank Robbers carrying full auto weapons and wearing body armor tore the shit out of the Hollywood PD because the Police Department didn’t have the equipment or guns to deal with the problem.
In the end they had to use hunting rifles taken from a nearby civilian gunstore and a commandeered armored car. Every Cop in the country was scared shitless that it would happen to them because almost no departments were equipped for that level of violence. So they started grabbing surplus IFVs (MRAPs now) and other gear from the 1033 program.
As time went on and the “Warrior Cop” mentality took hold, primarily from Police Departments hiring untold numbers of returning Gulf War & GWOT Veterans, those Vets pushed to expand their departments use of the 1033 program so they could have access to most of the same gear they were already used to using.
That’s how we got to where we are in 2025. Each individual step makes sense but the outcome of those cumulative decisions is increasingly problematic.
Thank you, that’s very informative. I only knew about the hollywood shootout as a catalyst for changing their weapons
Police can get decommissioned military equipment on the cheap, so long as they can basically write a grant proposal justifying why they want it.
Because of things like the North Hollywood Shootout. People don’t want a situation where the criminals have much better weapons than the police. It doesn’t matter that that kind of a situation is incredibly rare. People are scared and want police to never be outgunned.
Of course, that results in a bad situation where the cops in say Fluffy Landing, Florida have an armoured personnel carrier and don’t need one. And, they get to train SWAT tactics just in case, but they never need those skills. And eventually when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so they use their APC for a regular arrest just because they want to justify having it, and they want to use their cool new toy.
It does vaguely make sense to have a SWAT team, especially in a big city in the USA. A sovereign state is basically defined by having a monopoly on the use of force within its own borders. If the bad guys (ACAB, but you know what I mean) can outgun the cops, then it can lead to chaos.
Also, politicians need to be seen as tough on crime to get elected. If you increase police funding, you’re safe. If you cut police funding and there’s some kind of incident, you can easily lose your next election.
In the US, there’s no effective civilian control over police. Sure, theoretically the cops answer to the mayor or something. But, police unions are extremely powerful, and so mostly the cops get to do whatever they want.
Yeah the state of ohio having a swat team and even some armored vehicles is somewhat reasonable. Ohio State University’s police department on the other hand should not have an Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier.
But also, if it gets to the point that we need to bust out the automatic weapons and shit, maybe an elected member of the state government should be approving and leading.
I mostly agree. The one thing I’ll say is that police departments weren’t specifically ordering MRAPs. It’s more that the military had a lot of spares that were otherwise going to be mothballed or destroyed. In some ways it’s efficient to reuse military materials like that. But, there are obviously downsides too.