LA school police get free grenade launchers, rifles, armored MRAP vehicle from DoD. They'll return the MRAP

They don’t have enough money to pay enough qualified teachers to properly teach the students. But somehow money is no object to maintain a tank for the school police in case the little bastards form an armed insurrection.

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It’s a PDF download. Here’s another try: www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA536424

If I read the thesis correctly, the table we care about is table 6 on page 74. The Special Operations Command vehicles cost the most (unsurprising), so I am omitting them from this synopsis of FY2009.

Labour ran from $11,029 per year to $26,580. Reparable spare parts cost $13,939 to $18,872, consumable spare parts from $15,930 to $26,950, POL from $2,405 to $2,677, and sustainment overhauls from $7,555 to $20,508 (with most clustered around the latter figure.)

This is on top of training, manuals, and a whole bunch of other line items where I wasn’t sure what they were even for. We are looking, conservatively, at $50k per vehicle per year - admittedly under military conditions, but without the benefit of the military’s economies of scale.

The “LAUSD is so big” argument as justification for a school police force doesn’t make any sense. If you need police at a campus, call the local PD or Sherrifs Dept. Having a separate cross-jurisdictional police force is just inviting problems with the regular police. And there arent any special policing issues in a school that regular police cant handle, unlike, say, an airport - which already has the TSA, FFS. Nevermind the tank, the whole department is a waste of money.

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Maybe in place of scholarships, they could be rewards for honour students? Graduate in the top 3%, get a free sniper rifle, that kind of thing.

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Why do I get the feeling that the United States government would prefer a dystopia? This is insane.

Sadly, they’re returning the grenade launchers. The poor children will have to get their knowledge of launching grenades from the streets.

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Yes, it would simplify matters.

Matters which I would prefer remain convoluted and inconvenient for all involved. With lots of paperwork and other disincentives for the administrators who are failing to lead the students, but rather just react and call 911.

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It’s about inventory - the DOD has to move those valuable resources quick so that they can reorder and keep the manufacturers solvent and willing to contribute to our political life.

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In some cases (I’m thinking of university police departments) I’ve seennthe ridiculousness of standard policing practices put forth as the reason for creating specialized departments, on the grounds that they will be better able to deal with the kinds of issues common on campuses.

The problem with that, of course, is that most of those issues either shouldn’t be police matters at all, or else it is the general and not the local police practice that needs to change. But yeah.

How are these things “mine-resistant” when they have inflatable tires? They could probably be immobilized with a couple of well-aimed .22 LR shots, to say nothing of an actual military anti-tank mine, which they’re obviously pretty unlikely to encounter on local civilian roads. They make about as much sense for the application as a Formula 1 car. At least kids could learn to drive properly in the F1.

I’ve lived here all my life, and it looks like lunacy from the inside, too.

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I have a feeling that being “mine-resistant” is about protecting the people inside the vehicle from being blown up by mines, and not as much about keeping the vehicle operational when hit by a mine.

Obviously, though, a vehicle that can’t keep driving after going over a mine is of no use to the LA school system, so they should probably just sent it back.

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I guess it’s too much to hope that they would put the money they’re going to spend on maintenance into a decent chemistry department.

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No, the sniper rifles go to the Eagle Scouts.

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