Guns for Me But Not for Thee
Bart Hinkle
May 19, 2008
Hundreds of officers will be issued AR-15 rifles starting this summer, and police say the guns will be a better match for criminals. Although Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier was unable to provide an example of when such firepower would have been needed in the recent past, she said police should not be caught off guard. . . . Police officials said the rifles offer greater speed and accuracy, firing about 3,000 feet per second—almost three times as fast as the average police pistol. Officers who get the lightweight rifles will carry them in addition to their 9mm Glock handguns, Lanier said.
The department is depicting this decision as a tactical effort to keep up with drug dealers. But a more prosaic explanation presents itself:
The city got the AR-15 rifles from the Department of Defense for free as military surplus items.
Assistant Chief Joshua Ederheimer says the department wants to “be prepared to respond to a threat.“ Funny—so do city residents whom the District, in a Supreme Court case soon to be decided, wishes to disarm.
D.C. cops will soon start carrying military-style long rifles:
DC and Richmond are sister cities in that both have a large group of inner city residents who are out-of-control. Rifles, grenades, tanks, etc. have little effect on a self-defeating culture mired in ignorance and enslaved to poverty. It is true in Palestine as well as DC and Richmond.
Yet very little can be done out-of-fear of offending someone or their personal rights.
PLMurphy
May. 20, 2008 at 11:07 AM