DC to arm their cops with assault rifles
Here’s an interesting story, “D.C. to arm police with assault rifles.”
The department already has 500 semiautomatic AR-15 rifles, which were converted from fully automatic rifles, and has trained 340 officers to use them.
Chief Burke said the weapons will go in service after the department decides how to rack them in patrol cars, but gave no specific start date.
Now, why would there be such a need for that kind of firepower when there’s a gun ban in DC? Could it be because people who are OK with breaking the law don’t listen to gun bans? One also wonders, if DC is such a dangerous place that the local cops need to upgrade their arms from semi-auto pistols to fully automatic rifles, why are everyday citizens under such protection that they “just don’t need to have guns”?
Fess up, Fenty. If your citizenry were armed to be able to defend their own homes, the same thing that has happened elsewhere will happen in DC: crime will go down.
Good luck with the machine guns, tho.
I’m a resident of northern Virginia, near Washington, DC. By profession, I’m a network engineer for a very, very large company in the IT field. I work with several federal agencies in my job. Politically, I lean conservative on most issues dealing with matters of law, finance, national security, and personal responsibility. I’m more moderate in the social arena but don’t confuse that with the so-called “liberal” stance. You’ll get the picture.
This just seems crazy to me. I don’t know much about guns but I have a close friend who is an advent hunter and lifelong member of the NRA. I’ve received most of “gun education” from him. He reports that there is no other reason to have such guns except to kill people. Not for hunting, sport shooting etc. just to kill people
It would make more sense to strongly enforce current gun laws, instead of arming the police with the automatic people killing assault riffles. No doubt more accidental police killings will take place if they do this.
Arming police with these weapons is like pouring gas on a fire and it’s all but admitting failure to even attempt to follow and enforce existing gun laws.
The rifles they have are surplus military rifles that have have the fully automatic fire control parts removed - they are NOT machine guns anymore. They are also commonly found already in patrol cars around the country (as well as homes of regular citizens).
As far as their purpose, even if you assume that their only purpose is to “kill people” (and it isn’t) - so what? Of course their purpose is to kill people, but that is not always a bad or wrongful goal. If the person being killed is a criminal in the midst of a violent, unlawful act, and killing that person is necessary to protect oneself or others, then having effective tools to do so is important. All responsible people, whether in law enforcement or not, should have the right to own and use these tools to protect themselves.
I just don’t see what the big deal is about any of this.