I have been wondering this for a long time. Is it legal for law enforcement air craft (feds, state, local) in the USA to attach LIVE FIRING weapons (i.e. rockets, miniguns, flame throwers, missiles, ect) to their aircraft? Just curious. CRC

I hope not.

I think there is a Federal Law that prohibits police agencies from arming aircraft.

No

"We're [i]para military[/i] not [i]the miltary[/i]. Also we're a life saving organization not a life taking one" - One of the few things I remember hearing at the police academy.

As far as I can tell, it is not illegal. That being said, I don't think any agency, except for US Custms, arms aircraft.

We have a customs flight section here. I have never seen any "armed" aircraft. The crew members are armed, but as to the AC itself, no.

Waverunner,,,not entirely true.  We in law enforcement definately "take lives" in order to protect others.  It's a play on symantics.  

You have to tell the public, "heck yeah we kill people....and this is WHY and WHEN we do it."

Never try to "down play" or conceal what the truth really is.  

According to the FAA, customs has a couple of P-38's. I got tickled pink, thinking there may be some undiscovered Lightnings rotting in a warehouse somewhere, next to the Ark, until I did a little more searching and saw that customs has a series of P-3B Orions with consecutive serial numbers on either side of the P-38 consecutive serial numbers.

Drat! Blasted clerical errors.

It would keep the illegals out if Customs buzzed them with P-38 Lightnings!

A quick strafing run every now and then would help too!

"Aieee! (points to the sky) El diablo atado bifurcación!"

Av.

When I worked narc, we kept our plane in the Customs hanger at Saufley Field. Most of the folks you see there are federal prisoners. They decided to see how many were in for drug violations. At the time it was 76%. So, they moved to NAS Whiting Field. They have a couple of AS 355's for rotary, and use mostly prop jobs like King and Queen Airs. The folks from New Orleans Special Helicopter Intercept Team, NOSHIT, fly in with a Blackhawk every now and again.
We tried to get hard points on our Cessna 172 so we could mark marijuana patches with Willie Pete, but that was a no-go.

Good. See those forest fires out west? Fire bad.

PS. I have never met a marijuana whore or a strung out marijuana junkie in my life. Leave those poor bootleggers the hell alone and go nail some coke importers. What are you trying to do, ruin Domino's pizza financially?

Guns fired from airborne aircraft are area weapons.  They can't be precise.  Law enforcement personnel must account for and are accountable for every round fired.  

2.75 inch WP rockets are supposed to be for marking targets for air strikes, among other purposes.  The FAC shoots the rockets at the target, then directs the strike aircraft to drop relative to the smoke...100 meters east, 200 meters south, on the smoke, etc.  If you want to mark the location of a pot patch, just overfly the patch and note the GPS coordinates.  You create fewer forest fires that way.

IIRC, Mike Dillon had to clear the arming of his T-34A Mentor with a pair of Browning M1919's with the BATF.  His Huey mounts an M-135 minigun.

Poiklotrm, the first murder I ever worked, was  a double homicide over marijuana. A father and son were murdered, and a third seriously wounded by two brothers over poaching from their plot. The father was shot 18 times, his hand blown off and a double tap to the back of the head after being ambushed while in a boat. I found the son the next day. His PFD had hung up in a log jam, or we probably would never have found him. He had 26 body shots from a Mini 14, and a double tap to the head from a Beretta .380. He had so many holes, gases would never have floated the body. No, marijuana is not the harmless little cottage industry that it is promoted to be. The growers can be damn savage. Booby trapping plot's, shooting at us while eradicating, and on and on.
And FYI, the statement about the WP marking rockets was a JOKE! Sheesh, get a grip. A Cessna 172 is not capable of being up-graded to having hard points for 2.75" marking rockets.

Armed police choppers?

Only what they can make themselves and drop out of them.

i.e. Philly PD and the MOVE house.

That was a good one!

Anyone remember the movie "Blue Thunder" ?

[rocket]

so how about a sniper in a helo?

Yup,

They were going to use it against civilians, and that was a no no.

A few years ago, most marijuana plots around this area were marked for the eradication teams by dropping smoke grenades from the choppers. But for the past several years, I haven't seen this done. I guess GPS replaced them. But I am not aware of any fires being caused by them. Most of this type or work happens in Summer and the vegetation here usually isn't dry at the time, so fires were no problem.

I also agree somewhat with one of the above posters. While marijuana is not a good thing, it's effects are not as severe as those created by the more potent drugs such as cocaine and Oxycontin. A couple of years ago I saw a chopper hovering over a dope garden as I was driving. The funny thing was that this stuff was right between two people's homes who were known drug dealers. They ran wide open for years selling every harmful drug under the sun and nothing happened to them. Yet some dude with a few weeds prompted the National Guard to come in. Good grief! I say any problem should be countered by taking logical steps...like climbing a ladder. Work on the major issues first..like cocaine. And when that one is brought under control, then focus more attention on marijuana. No drug is good, but some are worse than others. My opinion is that we should be paying attention to stuff that's far more serious than pot attm. Just my 2 cents.