I was under the impression that one of the main reason police forces are getting "military gear" is because they're getting it at a steep discount due to the actual military not having anything else to do with it once they're done.
IMO this is even less charitable, since it implies that more violent police departments are seeking out surplus military equipment to better subjugate civilians.
If you require a firearm, and you can buy a military surplus weapon which is cheaper than a new "civilian" firearm, wouldn't you?
Based on the study, it seems like the answer is "yes" for violent police departments and "no" for everyone else.
There’s not much technical difference in “military rifles” from civilian AR15 other than military version has an extra pin and the finger groove
On the other hand, there's presumably a significant technical difference between police cars and mine-resistant vehicles created for military operations in the Middle East.
Not very intuitive that a mine-resistant vehicle would encourage anyone to kill more civilians tho.
True. It’s sad that they hastily sourced tons of MRAPs that turned out useless, but they probably belong to museums and scrapyards.
Not exactly, surplus weapons are really popular among civilians.
We are talking about police.
I remember reading once that what you think of as military gear obtained at a steep discount is not the first thing that comes to mind : essentially air conditioning.