Commonwealth Magazine’s excellent The Download newsletter offers a helpful recap of the militarization of Massachusetts police today, stuffed with useful links: “1,000 M-16 machine guns and M-14 automatic rifles” in recent years, among other weapons of war, for example, according to a June report by our ACLU.
Somewhere along the way, the Defense Department also sent the West Springfield Police Department two grenade launchers. Police Chief Ronald Campurciani told The Republican that the weapons were “old and antiquated” and would never be used. But he didn’t say the department would get rid of them either. Instead, they are stored in “an all-metal room.”
Gabrielle Gurley writes, “The Springfield Republican recently reported that DOD’s 1033 excess supply program allows small towns like Monson (14 M-16 machine guns and 5 M-14 semiautomatic rifles) Groton (17 M-16s) to add military weapons to their arsenals.”
We already have an Army, supported by the state-level National Guard, for national defense, with special controls established by the constitution and long custom to keep its immense power under proper controls. It is dangerous and bad policy, as well as an unnecessary expense, to create mini-Armies in cities and towns across the Commonwealth.
Jasiu says
See Juliette Kayyem’s op-ed piece in the Globe today.
jconway says
The only AG candidate who forcefully stated that the militarization trend is a problem, and one he will address as AG.
And at the DA level-continued radio silence from Marian Ryan while Michael A. Sullivan-an outspoken Patriot Act opponent and someone who actually helped prevent the Cambridge Police Department from using cameras it got ‘for free’ from DHS to spy on our citizens. He also keeps racking up police union endorsements, so it’s hard to argue the civil libertarian is anti-cop either. Most police officers don’t want or need this equipment, they want to be able to go into their communities.
As one chief said in a recent Times article on this subject:
“I want to be able to go into schools armed with Green, Eggs and Ham, not an AR-15”
howlandlewnatick says
A listing military paraphernalia that was sent to your county. Thinking about how many times we’ve seen the evidence rooms of police stations pilfered, do you think all those weapons are still under lock and key or in the hands of who-knows-who? An M-14 makes a good deer rifle, with automatic you can get a great price for it… ‘Pose a police officer has figured that out?
“There is not one single police officer in America that I am not afraid of and not one that I would trust to tell the truth or obey the laws they are sworn to uphold. I do not believe they protect me in any way.” –Henry Rollins
whoaitsjoe says
One thing I question is how much the government pays for this stuff. We’re paying about $499 for what I assume is a M4 Carbine or something in the family. Apparently they are paying $529 for a holographic optical sight. I’m going to reasonably assume it’s made by EOTech. $529 is basically MSRP.
Why in the world would the government being paying MSRP on a product they no doubt buy bulk in the thousands? That’s crazyville.
howlandlewnatick says
Interestingly, Alan Grayson, progressive Democratic Representative of Florida, entered house amendment 918 to cease transfer of military weapons to police. It was defeated -believe or don’t- by those receiving large contributions from the defense industries. Welfare for merchants of death?
“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” –Thomas Jefferson.
centralmassdad says
but by Dod, not by local governments.
I heard a report on NPR that some of he transfers of this kind of material comes with the condition that it MUST be used within X time, or be returned to DoD, which if true is an incentive to deploy this equipment even if not necessary.
Meanwhile the equipment that was actually in Iraq being used by the armed forces had to be jury-rigged for lack of replacement parts.
gmoke says
Here’s a mostly positive story on the psychological militarization of local policing from 60 Minutes last year:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/counterinsurgency-cops-military-tactics-fight-street-crime-04-08-2013/
A disproportionate number of first responders – police, fire, EMT – are in the National Guard and Reserves. Many of them have been deployed to war zones in the Bush/Cheney wars. Few if any of them have had any counseling on making a successful transition from war to peace, from the military to civilian life.
Also, most police departments do not have ongoing training in unarmed combat and compliance techniques. Police resort to choke holds, beat downs, nightstick, taser, and gun because they have no training in talking people down or controlling someone with a joint lock or martial arts technique rather than a weapon.
The hardware is one thing. The software, the mindset is another. We can get rid of the hardware but, if we still have a militarized mindset, it will do little good.
Mark L. Bail says
theory: 1) it dovetails with community policing 2) with the exception of BusinessWest, the Springfield area media never noticed it was a news story going on.
petr says
… without anything by way of endorsing the present situation, can we try to understand it first..? Agreeing that it’s bad, without assuming that it is deliberate — which might be worse — we maybe want to ask if “boys and their toys” might be closer to the truth than previously allowed.
Some (comparatively) trivial, but possibly enlightening, analogies: I like coffee. Since my office subsidizes coffee, I drink more of it. I like beer and I like Scotch Whisky. We have a tradition of ‘Scotch O’Clock’ every Friday. Since I like both beer and Scotch when my boss pays for it, I drink more of it. This too, is a possibly dangerous situation. A previous employer subsidized regular golf outings. When they did that, I played more golf. In fact, in my youth, I worked at a golf course and collected different balls, gloves, clubs, hats, sunglasses and various other equipment germane to the game. In the winters of those same years I worked at a ski resort, rather then the golf course, and similarly collected an array of the latest and greatest ski equipment, all of which the resort where I worked was willing to provide for me.
According to my wife, the worst aspect of my various positions as an engineer and computer scientist is the collection of hardware, from computers, hard drives, power supplies, breadboards, displays, testing equipment, random cables, wires and connectors and various other gadgets and parts — almost none of which I’ve paid for out of my own pocket– that lies strewn carefully about our apartment and has even leaked into a storage unit rented for the purpose…
I imagine that if I A) liked guns and 2) my work subsidized the use of guns I might will drift into a collection of high tech weaponry that matches the collection of high tech equipment my wife complains about. We can get all morally reprobative and perhaps even righteously so, about those who like guns, but I’m not entirely convinced the underlying dynamic is, per se, different from my habit of collecting what, in a previous job, was know as ‘swag’. Note well: I’m not trying to excuse the militarization of the police. I think it certainly should be curtailed. I’m just trying to figure out if the situation is deliberate or if it is more organic and similar to habits I’ve seen outside of law enforcement… I think it’s an important question: if there are deliberate attempts to create ‘mini armies’ around the country then such attempts should be stopped and the perpetrators punished. If, however, we’ve drifted into a having large caches of guns then, while we certainly need to clean up our act, I don’t know as we have to punish anyone.
JimC says
Wiki —
kirth says
If your outlook is to think of people that way.
Apparently, under some of the Federal-funded weapons programs, if a police department doesn’t use a piece of equipment for any 12-month period, they have to give it back. This is how SWAT teams end up serving warrants. Whoever thought that provision was a good idea hates Americans.
Mark L. Bail says
that is now becoming a suburbanish, bedroom community. It’s population is more like 9000+ now. It’s a town away from Springfield, but otherwise surrounded by not much. It’s next to Palmer. It was hit pretty hard by the tornado a few years ago. I have an increasing number of teaching friends who have moved there. Monson has had arrests for heroin recently, but nothing violent.
The biggest violent crime they’ve had in the last 15 years was
HeartlandDem says
2010 population 8,560. Population leveled off in recession and building boom slowed dramatically. Has been a bedroom community for years…..secluded, large rural lots with small local school system. 45 sq miles, single family households. “Tight-knit” community with generations of families staying in the community. Conservation and gun ownership go hand-in-hand in rural communities.
13 FT Police Officers. So there’s an extra M-16, “just in case.”
1/2 dozen street lights, few sidewalks. Great for marathon training and cyclists.
A defunct DDS facility in need of innovative rehabilitation and economic development.
It sits on the edge of western and central Mass and the gateway to Beacon Hill’s third world economy where homeless are shipped from Boston and an urban low-roller casino is proposed.
Mark L. Bail says
there?
HeartlandDem says
with the community and the region.
Mark L. Bail says
Palmer too.
bostonshepherd says
The trend has been for the Obama administration to “up arm” many federal agencies. An example is the arming the Department of Education. If that’s acceptable, I suppose it’s OK to give away all that surplus military stuff to local police departments.
Does the Commerce Department need 100,000+ rounds of 180-gr .40 caliber hollow points?
Except for branches of the military or the national guard, law enforcement should be limited to whatever firearms and equipment civilians can possess, or, conversely, civilians should be able to possess whatever law enforcement may possess.
whoaitsjoe says
Are you implying that civilians CAN’T purchase .40 JHP rounds? Because only can we, but that’s not even a round the military uses. They use a 9mm for the Beretta M9 family.
Also, how do you expect an officer to attain a level of proficiency that in the event they need to use their weapons? Say there are 100 officers in the entire DOC – that would be 1,000 rounds per officer. I’ve gone through a few hundred rounds at a range in one day just sport shooting, let alone training.
Saying that department X of the government bought Y number of bullets is either a scare tactic or just ignorance as to how much practice and repetition the safe operation of a firearm requires. And I don’t mean ignorance like the willful ignorance or that you’re stupid – just that a lot of people simply don’t know how many bullets you go through to achieve proficiency. If you don’t, that’s fine. But if you don’t, and you ask if the DOC needs 100,000 rounds of ammo, that’s a problem. If you don’t think that they even NEED armed officers in the DOC, then that’s a whole ‘nother issue. But if they do have armed officers, I want them to be trained enough to use their weapons, if needed, and not kill innocent bystanders with stray shots.
bostonshepherd says
My beef is why does the Dept of Commerce need armed officers in the first place? Same for the Dept of Education. Do they need to be armed?
I’m on the same page vis a vis sufficient rounds for training. 1,000 would be fine, 250 per session x 4 annual sessions. Makes sense.
SomervilleTom says
In the fiasco in Watertown, all those heavily armed and allegedly highly-trained “officers” (the state surely spent many millions of dollars on training) managed to shoot a gazillion rounds into a residential neighborhood at night and hit just about everything except the two suspects they were chasing.
Here’s my logic: send one or two dozen genuinely competent, psychologically stable, and smart State Police officers to a REAL training program. When a situation like Watertown happens, dispatch that team and ONLY that team. Target the suspects, not the neighborhood.
It is suicidal and absurd to arm our government in this manner.
whoaitsjoe says
Given the confluence of officers from various jurisdictions, confused command structure (initially) and intensity and gravitas of the situation, what happened in Watertown could have been much worse.
It certainly could have been better, for sure. But I ask you to do this (given I have no idea what you do/have done for work). Think about your job, something that you are no doubt well-trained, prepared for, educated in. Were you ever faced with a situation, in that role, that was completely unprecedented for you to the point where it shook you? Was your execution in resolving that situation the same, as graceful, as clean as completing normal tasks in your day to day work?
These are well-trained men and women in our police force, but they’re still people. People that were walking into a situation knowing that one of their own was already dead and terrorists who had the gumption to bomb innocents civilians were out there. This was unprecedented. No civilians were killed. No friendly fire deaths. Minimal collateral damage.
Please give our law enforcement some credit.
SomervilleTom says
I don’t buy it.
These are people who asked for — no, DEMANDED — heavy arms and equipment year after year to “fight terrorism”, and got it. And, to my eyes, couldn’t wait to use it.
I’m a programmer. None of my work involves life-and-death situations (despite management’s frequent exhortations to the contrary). On the other hand, when a production system suddenly falls on its face and seven or eight million subscribers suddenly get unpleasant error responses from their web browser, things do get exciting (at least for a programmer). Each of those is “completely unprecedented”. A hugely important key to handling them is professional demeanor, enforced by years or decades of discipline. Gather data. Gather facts. Pay attention to the facts, rather than your fears. Rely on what your PROFESSIONAL training tells you is likely taking place, rather than your racing heart. If a company in my business hires a development and support organization that can’t do that, it rather quickly disappears. That’s just the way the world works.
I did not see “well-trained men and women”. I saw a disorganized heavily armed mob that had no apparent clue about why they were there, what they were supposed to be doing, or anything else. They did clearly demonstrate their awareness that they were supposed to look tough, and they did.
The absence of civilian casualties was, in my opinion, purely coincidental — due in large part to the reality that their two suspects were themselves utter amateurs with no real clue about what to do.
I am quite certain that if the Tsarnaev brothers had been the well-trained well-regimented disciples of AQ (now being replaced by ISIS) that we’ve all been made to fear so much, Watertown would have been a COMPLETE DISASTER.
The men and women who enter our police force do so knowing full well that they are expected to handle themselves like professionals in situations like this. In my view, you greatly exaggerate the threat posed by the Tsaernaev brothers, the gravity of the marathon bombing, and the larger threat of terrorism in Massachusetts.
In my view, the combination of unchecked and unprosecuted police brutality, flagrant police corruption (I refer to the ongoing disability and pension racket operated by the Boston police and fire department), pervasive government corruption (even if you call it “patronage”), and media hysteria is MANY MANY MANY times more immediately dangerous to me and my family than any of the “terrorist” threats all this purports to “protect” me from.
This “cure” is many times worse than the disease it allegedly addresses.
centralmassdad says
What you describe is a direct consequence of terrorism, as much as the missing limbs and blown-out windows from the Marathon finish line.
Terrorism provokes terror. In a society such as ours, in which government reflects the people, the terror of the people will be reflected in the government. It is nearly inevitable. Terrorism will erode the values upon which our society is founded. I can think of no example of a government that resisted this “in the heat of the moment” and many that have succumbed.
The gleam of hope is that the damage can eventually be undone, as has happened in the UK and Spain, for instance.
SomervilleTom says
I grant you that the history of US treatment of Native Americans is itself a description of terrorism visited upon them.
Still, my point is that an enormous number of trains were blown up in the second half the 19th century, and we didn’t shred our Constitution. A band of “terrorists” shot up the Capital in the 20th century, and we didn’t declare war on Puerto Rican separatists.
We have collectively set an impossibly high standard when the marathon bombing (an almost routine event for much of Europe) is made into a historic terrorist incident.
There are three aspects of national security that matter:
– Economic security
– Border security
– Safety of US citizens
We have absolutely nothing to fear in our border security — no occupying hordes will be sweeping through our heartland, in spite of the xenophobic rantings of the GOP. I suggest that we have gone far overboard in setting an impossibly high standard of perfection in the third item, and are essentially ignoring the first.
I agree with much of what you say. What I found so dismaying about the national response to 9/11 was the flagrant pandering to hysteria, xenophobia, and fear of the Bush government, and the eagerness with the which the media closed the feedback loop. We should not forget the stupid color-coded “alert levels” that, as I recall, did not even include a color for “minimal threat”.
I share your hope that the damage can be undone.
centralmassdad says
I view the frontier settler/existing native interactions, from the colonial period through the 19th century, to be support for my thesis, on both sides. Massacre and counter-massacre were a product of fear.
The response of US authorities to the Puerto Rican separatists was to “arrest” them by pouring ammunition and tear gas into their homes. One of the leaders of their armed separatist parties was killed by the FBI in 2005.
I also think that most of their activities were in Puerto Rico, and therefore did not provoke terror in the American public at large. A better example from the time– one that did provoke fear among many/most Americans and much of Europe– were the anarchists of a century ago. They TERRIFIED people, and we got things like (i) Sacco & Vanzetti; and (ii) Chicago police opening fire on an unarmed crowd of striking workers in the wake of the Haymarket bombing. Neither are particularly consistent with the Bill of Rights.
Internment of American citizens after Pearl Harbor is another one.
I think that the phenomenon is greatly amplified by the communications of the modern world. I am less confident that any politician could have successfully prevented things like the Patriot Act and the Orange Alerts without being overcome by the political demand to DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.
centralmassdad says
I think that Europe is another reason for hope.
Not because they are somehow immune to this phenomenon, or are somehow more evolved that we troglodyte Americans. They are not, by a long shot.
I say that partly because their response has historically been the same– extreme overreaction and the disregard of Enlightenment principles like individual rights. Germany more or less suspended what functions as its Bill of Rights in 1977 in response to the Red Army Faction. The UK did the same for 40 years in response to the IRA. Spain didn’t bother having anything analagous to the Bill of Rights for most of its post WWII existence, and then disregarded what limited restraints existed in response to ETA.
No, I think the European experience illustrates that there is an outer limit to the phenomenon. Thinks like the Boston Marathon are more common in Europe, and therefore a bit routine, as you say. But people are not terrorized by routine incidents. They are appalled, and deplore whatever happened, and their hearts go out to the victims, and then they forget about it.
A more interesting question is why political terrorism, like 9/11 or the Marathon, provokes the intense fear response it does, while mass-shooting incidents like Sandy Hook or Columbine do not.
Christopher says
Bombs have this way of destroying everyone and everything in their way, while a gun is either pointed at you or it isn’t. This is why awhile back in a discussion with SomervilleTom I was having trouble calling abortion clinic shootings terrorism, but if such a clinic had been blown up I would not have had that difficulty.
petr says
… You are beginning to disappear ’round the bend on this.
To be perfectly frank, your argument invalidates itself: any “disorganized heavily armed mob that had no apparent clue…” would likely have left several dozen, if not a good deal more, corpses in the wake of its, supposedly heedless, thrashing about. You are inflating the cluelessness and lack of training of the police in order to conflate two separate events (Ferguson and Watertown).
We know NOW that the threat posed by the Tsarnaev brothers was scoped by their own limitations. But we did not know that then. No police or anybody THEN knew that they were looking for a punch drunk boxer-cum-messiah and his stoner kid brother. You can argue that they should have known or might have known if this, that or the other puzzle had been put together right… but what you cannot argue is that, on the night in question, anybody DID know.
Your arguments, as they apply to what is happening in Ferguson, and other places, are valid. What I and others are saying is that, despite the validity as applied to Ferguson, those arguments are wholly invalid as applied to Watertown…. Watertown is not one of those ‘other places’.
doubleman says
With 9,000+ police officers in Watertown in SWAT gear and with tanks, a huge perimeter set up for a full day, and multiple cities shut down, it still took a nice guy from Watertown to check on his boat to actually catch the single suspect.
I think Watertown is another demonstration that the militarization of police isn’t effective. Different from Ferguson, sure, but still instructive of a general point.
Even with the terrorism threat as high as it is now, terrorist acts are still outrageously rare, but we have allowed our government and police to take powers and react in ways that erode freedoms and harm the quality of our lives. Our police should be focusing on the real kinds of policing that can prevent the likely crimes (sexual assault, robbery, murder, A&B) not acting as if terrorist assaults are common and likely. Those two types of policing are on opposite polls, and, unfortunately, we have progressed much too far toward one end.
petr says
… the purpose of the 9,000 police officers, the entire perimeter and the ‘shelter in place’ order was not to find the single suspect. The purpose of all that was to ensure public safety while they searched. It’s easy enough to catch someone if you shoot everything that moves, bulldoze every structure in your path and otherwise disregard public safety. Take a look Gaza sometimes for a similar methodology.
… That’s an entirely different argument. A large, square, peg and a tiny, round, hole, aren’t compatible. I can buy that argument. There is validity to it. It is, however, not the argument presented.
The argument that somervilletom is making involves poorly trained hordes of heavily armed, largely rudderless, musclehead mussolinis doing actively bad police work. As I said, that argument (to me) makes a great deal of sense when applied to Ferguson. None at all when applied to Watertown.
The events in Ferguson started in broad daylight on an ordinary day when exactly the focus was on the ‘real kinds of policing’ you want and it all went horribly horribly wrong spirally from there to even worse. The events of Watertown occurred in the dead of night days after an actual public bombing of the largest single sporting event in the CommonWealth (which some called ‘terrorist’), the deliberate murder of an MIT police officer, an actual gunfight on the streets of Watertown, complete with IED’s and one dead suspect. The extent to which the remaining suspect was armed and/or wired for explosives was not known and thus the extent to which he represented a danger to the public was not known.
doubleman says
I don’t think those things can be separated that easily. The cops were there to find the suspect, which they believed required the actions they took of setting up the perimeter.
That’s irrelevant and not what anyone was suggesting as an alternative. They set up the perimeter to allow them to search.
These 9000 police officers were going through Watertown in combat gear, using their tanks, and raiding house after house looking for the suspect in an area where he wasn’t. That’s where I think there are some similarities. Of course, they were not actively harming people and violating rights like the animal cops in Ferguson, but there was a militarized police force overwhelming an area and that show of force was not effective at achieving the desired result.
I made my comments about how cops should do real policing and completely reject the militarization that has been common. As far as how the Ferguson issues started with the death of Michael Brown, that raises larger issues of policing, racism, and inequality. Those are different and broader issues than the militarization, but the reaction of police to protests raises all of those issues plus those related to militarization.
Same thing can be said for the protests in Ferguson. The extent to which they would evolve was unknown, which is why the cops chose (wrongfully) to react how they did. Whether a police response is appropriate is always a question, but when the police arrive ready and willing for combat, the consequences are also unknown. Watertown could have easily taken a very different turn with many deaths caused by police. Luckily it did not. The more weapons and improper training (plus other issues like police recruiting) our police have, the greater the likelihood of grave problems, of which Ferguson is surely one of the most acute and egregious examples.
SomervilleTom says
It doesn’t take 9,000 heavily-armed soldiers to establish the perimeter of a limited area like we saw in Watertown.
I think the purpose of the 9,000+ troops — and the parade of public figures, and the shutdown of the MBTA, and the lockdown of the city — was to send a message to the rest of us: “We can and will impose martial law if we decide to”. That MESSAGE was the reason that Governor Patrick was careful and intentional about putting the commander of the occupation force on center stage.
Some of us find that message comforting. Some of us do not.
centralmassdad says
The question about the DoE and the Commerce Dept are interesting ones, indeed.
But it should be pointed out that the equipment used by the Ferguson police is all available for civilian purchase. The civilian version of the M4 rifle they have been waving around is the AR-15, beloved of the NRA, and used by the shooter at Sandy Hook, CT. You can even buy the high-tech sighting scopes.
If you want the police to have what civilians can have, then this is the police you get.
bostonshepherd says
listed from the DOD to PD in Suffolk County. Police should be no better armed than civilians.
centralmassdad says
I didn’t click through your link before.
That entry describes a “night vision” sight designed to be mounted on crew-served weapons. Check the description here. “Night Vision, Crew Served Weapon” describes the scope only, and is so identified in order to distinguish it from a similar product: “Night Vision, Individual Served Weapon.” It does not seem to indicate that the weapons upon which these sights were designed to be mounted were also transferred.
In any event, you can buy one on amazon.com.
bostonshepherd says
…but isn’t that a local, and not state, issue?
After the 1986 FBI Miami shootout, PD’s across the country began to issue higher power handguns and long guns, too (both shotguns and rifles.) Two FBI agents were killed, 5 others were wounded. This despite outnumbering 2 bank robbers 4-to-1.
There is an appropriate time and place to deploy these weapons. That’s not a function of the DOD’s 1033 program. It’s a local political one. If Concord or Pittsfield think they need mine-resistant armored vehicles, well, that’s their choice. (Someone has to enforce Concord’s plastic water bottle prohibition, no?)
If I were a citizen in Concord or Pittsfield, I’d have an opinion based on need, benefit, and cost (those MRAP’s are wicked expensive to maintain.)
I see nothing in Suffolk County’s list that I wouldn’t want the BPD to possess. Well, maybe not the “night vision sight crew served weapons”. Crew served?
But it’s only fair that I get the option to buy up a MILSPEC 1911-type .45 caliber pistol for $58.71.
stomv says
Frankly, I have no reason to expect that the ~351 police chiefs across the state have the criminal justice expertise to know exactly what equipment they need, no less coordinate equipment across different municipalities.
Do chiefs know about pistols and vests? Sure. But do they really have the expertise to determine what military-grade gear is appropriate? Do they have the expertise to know the benefits, the training requirements, the risks, and the costs? Frankly, I doubt it — not across the board. That’s exactly why state policy should guide the weaponry of local police departments — the state has the ability to incorporate best practices and the unique characteristics of different kinds of municipalities in the Commonwealth.
Al says
it’s the attitude they develop once they have them. If they have them, they want to deploy them. They change the department’s whole outlook toward addressing a safety problem. Not every incident calls for the pseudo military assault posture we have seen in Ferguson, MO. Of course, most of our opinions are slanted by the way the news of the incidents have been reported and shown.
centralmassdad says
just means that the weapon takes more than one guy to operate. One to load, one to shoot.
When such things would be required for police work, I do not know.
whoaitsjoe says
The only, ONLY time a weapon the police would have that should require more than 1 person would be if a sniper needed a spotter for some reason. And that’s a really far-fetched local police situation, but I’ll give it to them. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be anything.
bostonshepherd says
BTW, a militarized, full-auto M16 can be converted inexpensively into semi-auto-only by changing out some parts in the fire control unit (i.e., the trigger assembly.) A police armorer can do this with $50 worth of hand tools.
Besides, it’s likely the M16s aren’t “fully automatic”, like the M16 rifles issued in Vietnam, but are the more contemporary dual-mode weapons: selectable 3-round burst and semi-auto. Is this such a problem?
kirth says
You don’t know if the M-16s have been converted from automatic fire, so you’re speculating that they might have been, then asking, “Is this such a problem?” All the reports I’ve seen say that the DOD transfers are of fully-automatic M-16s and semiautomatic M-14s. I’ve seen the phrase “Vietnam-era M-16s” in more than one report. Some of the PDs are converting the M16s to semiauto. Even in departments that do that, some of the weapons disappear before they can be converted. BTW – it is trivially easy to convert an M-14 to fire fully automatic, unless some major parts are replaced. .
You’re also overlooking the provision in at least some of these weapon-transfer programs that mandates them being used at least once each year, on pain of forfeiture. There’s a built-in incentive for local PDs to deploy the things whenever there’s any excuse.