10 facts about the SWATification of the US

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The term militarization gets used, but SWATification is better. Pretty sure that throwing grenades into cribs isn’t “military” in any way.

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Well, not as official policy anyway.

Yeah, and if you repeat that often enough, you might even believe it and a soldier get his stripes.

Ya, the list needs an additional item – how many innocent folks get killed or injured…
It should also list how many are the wrong address.

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Can we not send traffic to bullshit crackpot sites like ‘endtheamericandream’? Just look at some of the other articles and ads to see the crazy shit they believe, even if that one article is actually sourced.

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The problem starts at the top. What kind of example are our leaders giving us when they make billionaires out of “defense” contractors, and we solve all of our global resource conflicts with weapons and violence? It’s no wonder militarization is occurring for both of our citizens and the police.

It’s up to the voters to demand candidates that will put an end to our government’s violent tendencies both foreign and domestic.

No. 9 - Isn’t that what SWAT teams are supposed to do?

I’ve just finished the book Orange is the New Black. The author notes that the prison population of the USA in 1980 was about 500k. Now it is 2.3 million. This would seem to correlate with these SWAT facts.

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Looks like they cribbed most of their facts from this study by the ACLU.

And then folded them into their own agenda.

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Fair enough. I mean, real militarization of police would mean just destroying the neighborhood with a missile strike.

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Much better link, thanks!

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That’s what they were supposed to do, back when the need for a SWAT team was first conceived.

[snark]
But damn the luck, hostage situations and the like are actually quite rare, so this leaves a group of the most highly trained and tactically proficient officers languishing without their preferred form of adrenaline high.

But fortunately, there’s a win-win solution: put them to work serving search warrants!
[/snark]

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This sounds an awful lot like fascism.

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Far too precise. Maybe there’s a levee that could be breached nearby?

Oh, I meant a bigger missile.

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Like the R-36 mod 2, an intercontinental ballistic care package with a 25 megaton sun to brighten your day?

62 percent of all SWAT raids involve a search for drugs

They’ve obviously emptied the evidence lockers already.

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I see what you did there :wink:

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I have a minor question: Why do SWAT teams wear camouflage uniforms? Can’t someone tell them “It’s a jungle out there” is a metaphor?