Posted: 7/18/2006 7:13:07 PM EDT
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www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf About a 2mb download. Interesting stuff. |
I think he was refering to the subject in general. You know, JBTs and all? |
This topic has been debated here before. There are those here that think all police matters should be handled by Reed and Malloy or if a detective is required to call Joe Friday. In other words they see no need for SWAT/SRT or any need for cops to be armed beyond a revolver and a Remington 870. They will argue that by arming the police with AR's and dressing them in BDU type clothing with a helmet rather than a standard uniform and bus driver style hat that you are in essence creating the ability for the government to have a local Army of automatons to go door to door and seize your guns, kill your dog, and otherwise oppress you. Commonly referred to as JBT's ETA: the other side is the creation of a KGB/Gestapo investigation division to secretly follow you around and then send in the militarized police. |
Oh, I can personally see many reasons for SWAT and other groups. However, if you read the CATO report, you see a lack of accountability, and also the use of SWAT and no-knock raids under questionable circumstances or under Very questionable information. There needs to be VERY strict controls and accountability for No-Knock raids and for use of SWAT. Not the "well, there might have been drugs, and a [sleezebag]Confidential Informant[/sleezbag] told us that they are bad dudes in there" that is seen in some of the reports. AFARR |
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Just a few of the previous topics by the same or similar title: archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=360369 archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=343594 archive.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=75&t=316954 |
Hell, the Texas Rangers armed themselves with the 1911 before the US Army even got it completely issued to everyone. Cops shouldn't be told "having that gun makes you look scary" by people who have no idea what LEOs have to deal with in the performance of their duties. i dont even need to mention the probably hundreds of incidents where officers had to use handguns against suspects armed with SMGs, rifles or equipped with body armor. it's just unreasonable to expect LEOs to willingly underarm themselves. |
No kidding, just look at what was used to take down Bonnie and Clyde. On top of that police uniforms have been modeled after military uniforms ever since the concept of police was formed. Also is the fact that the ranks and structure of police departments was based off of the army. |
It's been that way since the beginning of civilian police forces all the way back to Roman times. |
Plus about a billion. I can see both sides of the story, can you guys that are attacking this article? The widespread use of stormtrooper tactics over TRIVIAL or UNSUBSTANTIATED matters needs to be severely curtailed. I personally think a cop ought to have an M16 and a rocket launcher in his trunk, along with night vision, SAPI plates and a teddy bear for the kids. Just use the right tool for the job. |
That was funny |
the problem comes when you say, oh, well this warrant "probably" will go according to plan, no need for SWAT, and then 3 or 4 patrol officers bust down a door and find 5-6 dealers with AKs. if theres any question as to how a warrant is going to be served, it should be left up to the officers enforcing it. |
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I would request that those of you who are quick to bash the study should actually read through the whole document first. It is thoughtfully written, carefully researched and does NOT bash police officers. There is an interactive map of no-knock raids at the parent web page: www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476 Quotes:
Also, please read some of the case studies. They are chilling stories of people, sometimes completely innocent of anything, and sometimes suspected of being guilty of minor crimes, receiving punishment and suffering far disproportionate to anything that they ever did to anyone. This has already caused the public to equate at least some of the police with JBTs. Ask yourself if you want all of the police to be thought of in this way. |
Shhh......if you guys keep using common sense and facts you'll ruin the usual crowd's JBT-bashing wet dream fantasy fest. |
Oh, yeah, back when the army WAS the police. Yep, I'll bet you get all nostalgic, missing the old days...why don't you move to just about any third-world shithole and get yourself an army uniform and all the military weaponry you can hang off your belt. Oh, wait, you don't have to move...JBTs are turning America into a militarized police state even as we speak. What we need is to kill the WoD and cut police budgets by 70% or so and abolish forfeiture laws. That would cut out all the fat that provides APCs and medium machineguns for the police. 
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dammit! see what you've done, you jinxed what was turning out to be a normal debate for once. j/k theres no such thing as a normal ARFCOMMER debate 
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M16/AR15 - CHECK! Rocket Launcher - I WISH! Night Vision - CHECK! SAPI plates - not on my salary! Teddy Bears - whole garbage bag full (including 7-11 Free Slurpee Coupons) - CHECK! Critics should look at our dept. policy on how we have to handle each and every situation....what we can and cant do. Then there are the case law clauses and standard Constitutional issues to maintain and adhear to....not to mention the public perception/image issues that must be upheld. All of the above against very well armed thugs (Ak's etc..) who dont give a crap about me, you, or them, the law, any case law/policies/standards, or the constitution for that matter.......until you have to use justifyable force, then the constitution is their life line for the law suits...(i.e. - sorry I beat the crap out of you when you punched me several times in the face and continued to resist with violence as I attempted hand cuff you, after I cut my hands jumping chain link fences chasing your sorry a$$ as you ran...in the process throwing your dope and a gun in the bushes for some kid to find later....all because you "think" you had a warrant) the general public has no idea......they know only what the media spoon feeds them and are clueless to the reality.... Our rules and regs = VERY Many Theirs = NONE So Mr and Mrs John Q Public....help me and especially my family out...help even the playing field....quit bitching about "the militarization" and understand for alot of COPS every day they are in a war on the streets...just becuase you dont see it does not mean it doesnt eexist. 
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You need to spend some time not only firearms training but also in a World Civilization class. The Romans had two seperate groups, they had a civilian police force and the army. The civilian police force has divided up into three groups. They had a light, medium and heavy (their swat team) forces. They also had a secret service type branch. These police forces were SEPERATE from the army. Try again. |
No, Police forces have been around much longer than that. The modern urban police force however is a 19th century invention pretty much. I have a suggestion though. Abolish all police forces except the Sheriff is perhaps one deputy. Then we go back to the system where the wealthy can privately employ their own private armies and administer justice as they see fit over their various spheres of influence without interfearence from the government. Then everyone would be happy since the rule of wealth would clearly outweigh the rule of law. |
That is a scary statment. If the individual street officer has control, why worry about getting a warrant in the first place? Who verifies their source of information (who may be a druggie himself, looking for money or to get off on another charge)? Who verifies the address to make sure that the door being broken down is not some old lady's bridge club? Why are 3 or 4 patrol officers "Busting Down" a door--what happened to knocking? If the patrol officers are not sure of what is in the building, why was a warrant issued? What happened to reliable surveilance? Unless I am mistaken (as a non-leo), drug dealers tend to remain in a building selling/mixing, etc. until they are chased out. AFARR |
Or... "Shut your holes and bow-down and worship your masters because you're LUCKY to have us because it could be SO much worse. You dare not criticize or take a hard look and wonder if things could be changed for the better. We are the men in blue, we are above suspicion, and we are ALL nearly-perfect men of honor who seek only to serve and protect. We rarely make mistakes and/or get carried away in the heat of the moment. When you question our policies and tactics, you question ALL of our integrity and our motives. Which makes you a cop-hater of the worst magnitude. What kind of a person would even dare question the issues related-to and our current progress toward a police state (***cough*** Founding Fathers ***cough***)? Can't you see that we ALL are just here serve you in complete sincere benevolence?" |
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i've never read the police "issues" as being a "militarization" (SP?) problem. the problem with me lies with the politicians. every day they are making new laws. every day they are making more felonies. every day they are justifying more uses of extreme force, for things people have ALWAYS been doing, and that were never really harmfull to anyone in the first place. war on terror, war on drugs, whatever. serve a warrant. but rest assured there will be a time when guns are finally illegal in this country (bloomberg and others have already declared a "war on guns"). and when they are, the police WILL bust down your door and put a gun in your face when some CI (or your nosey neighbor) tells them you have gun. after all, it's for everyone's safety (even though you've never been a violent person, and you've never hurt anything or anyone with a gun, or even had the intentions of doing so). |
Wow. You are a feces hoagy on so many levels. I really don't post about anything unless I have at least a rudimentary understanding of it, unlike some, and Roman military history occupies about four feet of my bookshelves, along with another foot or so of Roman Republican and Imperial law. Allow me to correct some small part of the half-assed community-college education you were forced to suffer to get your job: The Romans had no police in the sense we have today. Law enforcement was the duty of the individual, who could demand the presence of anyone he felt had wronged him in the courts. Essentially, they sued the thief/murderer/adulterer/whatever, and an aedile or other magistrate who had jurisdiction would decide the issue, though sometimes a patronus was appointed by a magistrate to investigate and decide. The leges de repetundis did address murder in a limited way but were more concerned with crimes against the public, such as forgery and magisterial misconduct. But basically, no crime was deemed to have been committed if no one complained. For most of the Republic, any large-scale public order problem was dealt with by the Senatorial and Equestrian classes arming themselves and their dependants. Under the late Republic the Imperatores organized military garrisons posted inside the city whose duties included firefighting and maintenance of public order. Under Augustus, they were included in his military reorganization, with three cohors urbana and seven cohors vigilia, largely recruited from among freedmen (ex-slaves) for a length of service that varied between 15 and 25 years and were commanded by military tribunes of equestrian rank (though during some periods the Urban Cohorts were commanded directly by the City Prefect). For actions of high political significance, or that were in scope beyond the capacity of the lesser two cohors, the Praetorian Guard was brought in, which recruited almost exclusively citizens of Italian birth for 15 years of service. They WERE separate from the legions, but so were the fleet and the reservists. Your claim that a separate organization equals lack of military status is like saying our Army is military, but our Navy and Reserve Forces are not. All three city garrison units were military, with military commanders and regular terms of service leading to the same benefits bestowed on the regular legions. No civilians. Class is out. Consider yourself schooled. |
Wait for it..... Wait for it.............. OWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
Statistically, the wrong home being entered is in the minority, but failed raids make better TV. Anyone who doesn't think that the police should not be armed better than the bad guys needs to turn in their evil black gun because they obviously are over armed. I would not want to be a police officer because of the people that you have to deal with on a regular basis. I have respect for those who are. It seems like it would be hard to protect the rights of scum who have not earned anything and deserve to rot. The same ones who complain about the police are the ones who ignore the actions of scum on the street and even in their neighborhood. I believe that if everyone would take more responsibility in acting instead of sitting back and letting things go on in their neighborhood and ignoring it, we would be much better off. The abuses of power and ineptness that exists in some places obviously needs to be corrected, but the basic structure seems sound. |
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Best I could do on short notice. Praetorian Guard The praetorians (cohors praetoria) were the imperial guard to protect Rome and the emperor. They were a crack unit whose members wore a special uniform and received double pay, in addition to the bribes which they came to be offered in the guise of bonuses for their allegiance. (Traditional teaching is that the praetorians were crack soldiers, chosen for their fighting ability. There are however those who claim that the Praetorian guard, rather than being a body of select men, were merely an army drawn from Italy, rather than from the provinces.) When the emperor went on campaign, the imperial guard went with him. The institution of the cohors praetoria had originally been that of a group of men acting as bodyguards to a general, but Augustus - most likely drawing on the experience of Julius Caesar's murder - created a large personal army. Initially, the Praetorian guard consisted of nine cohorts of 500 men each. This was increased by emperor Caligula to twelve cohorts. Vitellius again increased their number to sixteen cohorts. Vespasian therafter reduced their number again to nine cohorts and Domitian increased them to ten cohorts of 500 men. A cohort was commmanded by a tribune, together with two equestrians. The guard itself was commanded by the praetorian prefects, who were equestrians rather than of senatorial rank. A sign of the exclusion of the mighty senate from certain key positions by the emperor. Soldiers of the praetorian guard served only for sixteen years, a term much shorter that the service of an ordinary legionary. But after their sixteen year term they became so-called evocati, which ment that they were held back from discharge. Their service in the praetorians meant they either went on to perform specialist military duties or it simply qualified them either for service as centurions. These centurionates would usually be taken up in praetorian guard itself or in the city cohorts and the vigiles. Though some also took commands as centurions in the regular legion. Imperial Horseguard Together with the praetorian infantry unites there was also a small cavalry unit, which by the second century - created either by Domitian or Trajan - had become the imperial horseguard (equites singulares augusti). This cavalry unit, drawn from the best frontier cavalry forces, was in size about that of a ala quingenaria which would amount to roughly five hundred men. Unlike the praetorians, the imperial horseguard did not necessarily wear special uniforms or insignia. Instead every rider may well have worn his individual provincial equipment, thereby granting the unit a very cosmopolitan appearance, reflecting the variety of people within the empire. The early emperors tried their best to detract from their reliance on the military, choosing to be seen as political leaders instead. So the praetorians and the imperial horse guards often wore civilian clothes in those early days. The German Bodyguard The German bodyguard (germani corporis custodes) was reasonably small unit of up to 300 men, which formed a guard around the emperor, closer still than the praetorians. Being foreigners, almost entirely recruited from the German tribes of the Batavii and Ubii, they were seen as less corruptible by bribes of power or privilege than the praetorians. Though it was exactly their foreign blood which also made them very unpopular. They existed only under the early emperors, commanded by the emperor himself, until in AD 69 Galba disbanded them. The Palatini Among the many reforms introduced by Diocletian one was the creation of a huge imperial guard. He confined the Praetorian Guard (which he saw as corrupt and dangerous) to Rome. The numbers of the new troops he originally raised, the palatini, are not known. But by the end of the fourth century this new imperial guard mustered twenty four vexillations of cavalry (five hundred each), twenty-five legions (a thousand each) and one hundred and eight auxiliary troops (five hundred each), stationed all around the empire at the major cities. The Varangian Guard The Varangian Guard, also known as the Waring Guard or the Barbarian Guard, emerged in the 11th century in Constantinople as the bodyguard to the emperor. The first mention of this guard appears in 1034, and they were re-organized in the mid eleventh century by Romanus IV. Mostly this bodyguard consisted of Danes and Englishmen, many of the latter joined after the defeat at Hastings in 1066, preferring the service to the emperor to life under Norman rule back home in England. The Varangians were ferocious fighters, with full beards and using two handed battle-axe as their prefered weapon (which is why they were also known as 'the axe-bearers' in Constantinople). They lived under their own laws, prayed at their own church and elected their own officers. Their leader was known as the 'Acolyte' (the follower), which was derived from the fact that he always followed immediately behind the emperor whereever he went. At banquets or audeniences the acolyte was to find found standing right behind the emperor's throne. Unlike bodies such as the Praetorian Guard, the Varangians became famed for their loyalty to the emperor, even their willingness to fight to the death to protect him. City Cohorts Towards the end of his reign emperor Augustus created three more praetorian cohorts, bringing the number to twelve. But these additional cohorts were very soon re-designated as city cohorts (cohortes urbanae). Their duty was to patrol the city of Rome as a police force.Given their success, further such cohorts were formed and sent to police other important cities of the empire. |
Tsk, tsk, the desperate Google cut-and-paste. And nothing that indicates the urban troops were civilians...you said that I was inadequately educated because they were civilians. Looks like my education was not the inadequate one...
In other words, were assigned from one military "branch" to another instead of to your supposed "civilian" police. Most recruits played out their entire hitches with the same unit, but centurions appear to have been moved to different postings in different legions, and even moved between "branches", going from the regular legions to the Praetorian or Urban Cohorts and vice-versa. The Urban Cohorts shared camp with the Praetorians, and the best of the Urban soldiers could hope for advancement into the Praetorians. The vigilies were considered "garbage troops", formed of freedmen (the next-to-lowest class of human, barely above slaves) and used for firefighting and curfew-enforcement but still commanded by centurions and Equestrian prefects. And the uses the Evocati were put to are sometimes very interesting.
Ah, the red highlighting that marks the Main Thrust.... Too bad it misses the mark. Elite Praetorian Cohorts were changed to Urban Cohorts, and that made them civilian? The highlighted remark is rather sloppy, as the police duties noted were standard military "police" duties; enforcing general order. They are still described in military terms and are not your fictitious "civilians". And, actually, the formation of Urban Cohorts in provincial cities was strongly discouraged by most emperors as a possible source of subversion. An example is the letter from Trajan to Pliny recommending that he maintain fire-fighting equipment to loan to the cities instead of letting them form their own city cohorts to combat fires.
[Edited to add the text of the letter] |
The lengths this Villiage Idiot will go to to try and convince us he knows what he is talking about. |
It's 8 in the morning here. Aren't you supposed to be on the school bus? 
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| Let the LEOs take arms, God knows I am. In this day and time the cops need military weapons. As long as they don't forget they're not the only ones with the right to own the same weapons and CCW. They say, "protect and serve" but all that protect and serve bullshit is just that, bullshit. Don't get me wrong, their job is fucked up, I wouldn't want it, but they are the ones who volenteered for that shit work. I know they're alot of good officers out there making a difference but I'm the only one in charge of protecting me and my family. Usually, once the police show up it's already over. |
If you can't attack the information, attack the source. 
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Regarding police having military weaponry. We argue that it is our right to bear arms and have whatever gun we want. We go out and buy several AR15 rifles to "defend" ourselves and our families from any potential attackers. So why can police not do the same? Plus, their job requires that they go out and actively seek out these would-be or have-been attackers. If you were to seek out and capture these criminals, would you not want the best equipment available to intimidate and discourage the person in question from attacking you? And if he does, would you not want the firepower to stop any threat as quickly as possible? I get the impression that people think police have their rifles at the ready when they perform a traffic stop. |
What information? Steaming bull hockey has a very distinctive odor. Don't you smell it? |
That's the best you can do in the face of that learned spanking V_I just administered to your alligator-mouthed-but-hummingbird-assed comrade? The best thing you could do would be to get quiet. |
OOOOPS!!! Someone just outed their troll account
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The cut and paste. Is the perfect example. These forces were under the control of the civilian government not the Army. They were the civilian police forces of the time. The moving of members of the Army to these civilian police forces is not different from today when a member the military joins the civilian police. Just because former military members join a modern day police force does that make it a defacto army? No. These civilian police forces were under the direct control of the civilian government. |
Cut johninaustin some slack. He's one of Texas' "finest". When he starts to lose a debate he's used to fondling his badge and gun in an effort to intimidate, instead of offering-up REAL arguements. |
non sequitur if ever there was one. Debate was something they didn't teach at community college, did they? |