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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: 2) by tathra on Sunday June 21 2015, @06:10PM
like it or not, marijuana is against the law in most places. i don't like it and think it and all other drugs should be legal and regulated, but the police aren't to blame for doing their jobs - enforcing the law. the people who deserve the blame are the legislators who passed such laws, whether they wanted them because they're racist or because they stand to benefit, financially or otherwise, from it being criminalized. surprisingly, quite a few cops even agree [www.leap.cc] that prohibition should be repealed.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Sunday June 21 2015, @07:52PM
Police put peaceful people in jail. Do the police give anyone else a pass for "just doing their job"? So ironic, maybe your job is to sell marijuana. "Just doing their job" isn't an excuse that the police would never accept from anyone, so why should we accept it from them?
Being a soldier on the front lines of a tyranny is not something that can be forgiven with "well you should blame the tyrants not the soldiers". Police know that what they are doing is wrong, or maybe some don't, and maybe some don't care: but they do it anyway. There are no good cops.
the people who deserve the blame are the legislators who passed such laws
Where are the physics books with the 4th law of thermodynamics that everyone keeps quoting to me? "The amount of blame in any situation is a constant." It's as if everyone believes that if you blame one person for his actions, then there isn't enough blame left over for someone else.
Well, I am fortunately quite capable of blaming multiple people at once. Try it sometime, it actually works. Police are guilty of making a life out of putting peaceful people in jail (and that isn't even getting started on "civil forfeiture", aka "theft is ok as long as you are a cop"). Legislatures are guilty of passing legislation promoting these things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @11:49AM
uhhh, everyone, including cops have a duty to disregard and attempt to abolish any unconstitutional law. any law that is not even in the spirit of the constitutional is automatically unconstitutional! so no, they are not excused from being americans just because they put on a uniform. dumbasses across the country love to say, "they are just doing their jobs", etc. so were the nazis at the deathcamps.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:52PM
godwin's false analogy. the laws are still legal until the courts rule them unconstitutional and thus void. its the citizens' responsibility to nullify bad laws from the jury box if nobody can challenge their constitutionality directly. the police are not lawyers, their job is to enforce the laws not to judge them. the police already think they're above the law, picking and choosing which laws to enforce and which ones they should follow, and here you are actually endorsing that? fuck you, bootlicker.