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Manny Fernandez writes in the NYT that the scores of military and police-style vans, trucks and cars offered for sale on Craigslist and eBay have raised concerns for some law enforcement officials particularly after the Dallas attack on a police headquarters but officials say the vehicles appear to be legal for the most part, so there is little they can do. Jeff Funicello, for example, is selling his black 1975 GMC armored truck on Craigslist. The body is armored, and the windows are bulletproof. It has sliding portholes to point rifles from and a sprinkler system inside. Long ago, it transported money, and it was once the target of a shootout in the 1980s.
Of course, people have been driving reinforced cars long before the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. But the celebrities and executives who install bulletproof windows and other types of armor on their vehicles often do not want it noticed. Celebrity clients generally demand that the exteriors of their luxury armored vehicles look normal so they blend in. However those who buy and sell armored vans want people to look. And the popularity of apocalyptic movies and television shows has put a new twist and added a macabre cachet to such vehicles "This is America," says Funicello. "I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one. If I wanted to buy a fire truck, I could."
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 20 2015, @11:11AM
Around here - Vancouver, Washington - if you jaywalk across an empty street you'll find yourself totally surrounded by a SWAT team.
Santa Cruz, California is best known for its UC campus, its hippies and its lesbians but even so, the City Council authorized the purchase of an armored personnel carrier. The last time I was there I became completely convinced that the abundant magic mushrooms that grow in the mountains there had gotten into the drinking water. After Kuro5hin's Blarney pointed out to me that psylocin has a short shelf-life, I eventually concluded that the SCPD had all been dozed with LSD by Occupy Santa Cruz.
A young schizophrenic man was brutally murdered for no apparent reason by the police in Fullerton, California. Two Portland Police Bureau officers beat a homeless man to death because they thought - incorrectly - that he was urinating in public.
Given my own Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder, I'd rather like to drive around in a bulletproof car so as to protect myself from the police.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]