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President Trump will sign an executive order to allow local police departments to receive or purchase military surplus equipment:
Police departments will now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare, including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Monday, describing it as "lifesaving gear."
The move rescinds limits on the Pentagon handouts that were put in place by President Barack Obama in 2015 amid a national debate over policing touched off by a spate of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of the police, including the shooting death in 2014 of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., by a white officer. Some local residents viewed police use of military equipment during the ensuing protests as an unnecessary show of force and intimidation.
In a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police in Nashville, Mr. Sessions said Mr. Obama had made it harder for the police to protect themselves and their neighborhoods. "Those restrictions went too far," Mr. Sessions said. "We will not put superficial concerns above public safety."
Mr. Sessions said that President Trump would sign an executive order on Monday fully restoring the military program, called 1033, and that the president was doing "all he can to restore law and order and support our police across the country." [...] The program was started in the 1990s as a way for the military to transfer surplus equipment to federal, state and local police agencies fighting the drug war. More than $5 billion in surplus gear has been funneled to law enforcement agencies.
Organized gangs get to play soldier.
Also at The Hill and USA Today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:08PM (3 children)
None of those external factors you listed cause thugs to violently attack and kill one another on a nightly basis. It's something they voluntarily choose to do on their own.
Decades of leftist social, economic and political policies have created an environment where certain people don't need to take responsibility for their actions, and as would be expected the situation has devolved into total chaos.
President Trump has shown he isn't overly interested in playing petty political left/right games. As he states repeatedly, his main interest is in "Making America Great Again". That can't happen as long as the third most populous area of the country is in utter turmoil. That's why I wouldn't be surprised if he puts an end to the nonsense taking place in Chicago.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:37PM (1 child)
Sure they do. You just have to have an IQ in positive territory to recognize it.
You have to have hope that if you work hard in school and then work hard at a job that you'll get somewhere better than what you'd get for criminal activities. Idiots like you seem to think that there's an automatic link between hard work and success that just doesn't exist for many people. Those policies that you claim had no role were instrumental in destroying the black community in a way that hadn't previously been seen in the north.
Bum education, little opportunity for a decent wage and you think that has no role at all in the violence? Same thing is happening in the Gaza strip where poverty is unimaginably common and there's people willing to pay for those people to engage in terrorism.
If you want to decrease violence, you have to ensure that everybody has a path to a comfortable life without engaging in violence. That's not necessarily enough, but it does make a difference. People who have something to live for are far less likely to be willing to throw it all away than those who have little or nothing do.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:06PM
This will also require a good amount of patience for a chunk of years. Community problems such as gangs are not going to disappear overnight, so expect the GOP to crow about how initiatives don't work after the first year.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Alias on Friday September 01 2017, @12:41AM
None of those external factors you listed cause thugs to violently attack and kill one another on a nightly basis.
Tetraethyl lead, overcrowding and poverty tend to cause violence. Of those, the lead is probably the worst. The violent crime rate has fallen a lot since the last of those with the high brain lead concentrations aged out of the most violent times of life. This is pretty well documented. People with brain damage don't really "choose" to do things in the same way a normal person does.