• @BigPotato@lemmy.world
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      716 months ago

      DOD doesn’t want to pay upkeep and it was designed for roadside bombs in remote mountains not Iranian drones.

      Might as well give it to the cops, in case one of their supporters accidentally hits it while trying to bomb a women’s shelter or something.

      • @Madison420@lemmy.world
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        266 months ago

        They’re specifically not to be used on roads because they don’t fit, rollover if sneezed at and destroy our roads but fuck it they’re police right?

          • @fiercekitten@lemm.ee
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            76 months ago

            I dunno, it might have to “monster truck” its way over all the other motor vehicles already parked in the bike lane.

        • @thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
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          76 months ago

          I’m confused about the design. If it’s designed for mountain areas but is top heavy and rolls easy, isn’t that a major design floor for an area where the terrain is likely to be steep from left to right in parts?

          Maybe my idea of terrain in mountainous areas is wrong.

          • @anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            56 months ago

            It’s designed to stay on roads.
            Those roads are natural choke points where bombs are often hidden on the ground, which results in a high and heavy design.

            • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              36 months ago

              MATV begs to differ. We always had the technology. We just wanted a cheap solution to stop taking so many casualties.

          • @BigPotato@lemmy.world
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            26 months ago

            Tall but narrower than other options while having survivability in case of getting IED’d. I know HMMWVs are actually big but the MRAPs didn’t all have a much larger footprint.

            Fun fact though, they had to add a gunners harness because the gunners were more likely to die in a roll over. Armored plates all up over your back but you get crushed because the Specialist driving hasn’t even driven anything bigger than his Civic and doesn’t have enough hours dealing with actual Afghan roads.

        • @BigPotato@lemmy.world
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          16 months ago

          Hey, you can easily get them up to 50mph on an airfield runway and feel the death rattle telling you to slow down. It’s basically all operator error.

    • @crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      36 months ago

      Is it “gifted” to them, or are they paying taxpayer dollars to purchase these war machines? When they’re turning our local communities into war zones, some of us might even question whether we should reduce their funding significantly if this is what they’re squandering our money on.

      Watch them cower inside of this vehicle, idling in the parking lot as a school shooter empties one magazine after another.

  • @Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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    1016 months ago

    I feel like these should be used as a sort of honey pot. If your police department buys one of these, fire everyone and start over from scratch.

    • @Melonpoly@lemmy.world
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      276 months ago

      I think these are handed down for cheap/free by the military. Not that a police department needs these types of vehicles.

        • @Mirshe@lemmy.world
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          76 months ago

          DoD hardware for police usually comes with contracts that state they have to be maintained in working order, because the DoD can just take them back if there’s a military need.

          Effectively, it’s the PD paying to warehouse and maintain DoD equipment for them, as long as the DoD doesn’t mind the stuff getting used once in a while.

          • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            36 months ago

            The military will never want these back. In fact most of the stuff they give police is extremely obsolete from a military perspective.

            • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              26 months ago

              It’s a cover. The military is never asking for this equipment back unless they’re conscripting the cops to the front line in the Rockies because of the surprise North Korean invasion.

  • @phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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    986 months ago

    IUD jokes aside, I think the way the cops are grinning is enough to say they don’t need it and they view it as a toy.

  • @frezik@midwest.social
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    936 months ago

    Let’s say you’re a cop and you get a call: there’s a hispanic gay crossdresser armed with a .50BMG sniper rifle with explosive rounds reported on the roof of the KwikeeMart, and they’re threatening to shoot the Walmart across the street unless they’re called by their proper pronouns, black lives/matter. This situation calls for an immediate response with at least a MRAP, and that’s only because they don’t have the funding for an airstrike from an A-10.

  • @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    896 months ago

    Slightly too big to fit through a school hallway. Just big enough to wait outside in the parking lot. We’ll take it - TX police

  • @Phegan@lemmy.world
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    626 months ago

    I don’t understand how normal people don’t see this and instantly become radicalized

    • @Demdaru@lemmy.world
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      196 months ago

      Oh, me? Nah. Now, that car, damn that’s radical. Imma gonna enlist! :D

      No, really, why do you think they post these?

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      -226 months ago

      I’m sure they do. But radicalized to do what? Wave a sign? Write an angry letter? Vote?

      Besides, excessively strident opposition to the police MRAP will get you labeled a tankie.

      • @HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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        326 months ago

        No, shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie. Not wanting police to have what is essentially a light tank, will not get you labeled as a tankie. Don’t try to dilute the term.

        • @Lianodel@ttrpg.network
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          36 months ago

          Seriously.

          It’s like when you see a post about punching Nazis, and concern trolls show up to complain about people misusing and overusing the term. They don’t offer a correction, and they’re not defending anyone because no specific person or group of people was called out. They just saw a negative post about Nazis and fascists, got defensive, and tried to muddy the waters. A hit dog will holler.

          Also, obviously any term will be misused and overused, and I don’t know every context people are talking about. But, for my part, I see complaints about people being called “tankies” way more often than people being called tankies, and in situations like the above. And it’s usually accompanied by complaints that right-wingers are calling people tankies, something I don’t actually see all that often. What I see more often than that is the terminally online, gatekeeping left. So, is the problem coming more from actual conservatives, or from leftists that other ostensible leftists want to dismiss out of hand?

          I don’t know what’s in anyone’s heart, the specific people they’re talking about, or the contexts and personal experiences they’re talking about. I’m not going to assume bad faith. But, when I see people jump in to say “tankie” is a meaningless phrase, it just sounds like the same rhetorical game when people try to say “Nazi” and “fascist” have become meaningless.

        • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          26 months ago

          I would love to believe you. But I’ve been called a tankie too many times in the last few months for the brave position of… “We shouldn’t be funding a genocide”.

            • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              46 months ago

              I don’t particularly care. But it does show how diluted it is already when Biden stans are using it to “other” anyone who won’t fall in line.

        • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          26 months ago

          shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie

          I’ve heard it aimed at anyone who is anti-cop. I’ve heard it aimed at folks advocating a general strike. I’ve heard it hurled at Palestine protesters. I’ve heard it aimed at people who won’t vote for Joe Biden.

          Don’t try to dilute the term.

          Way too late for that.

            • @StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world
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              -16 months ago

              As an intelligent, mature adult, I resort to insults when I don’t like what someone is saying. Thinking is hard!

              Aesthelete@lemmy.world

              • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Someone that thinks “tankies” are a thing that most people talk about or have even heard of outside of “online” needs to go listen to the bees buzz.

          • @RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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            16 months ago

            That’s just some stuff that you claim that you’ve heard. For the rest of us those are not the definitions. Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it’s a pro-authoritarian label for authoritarian communists.

            • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              36 months ago

              Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it’s a pro-authoritarian label

              It’s a “pro-Russia/China” label. You can be as authoritarian as you like without being a tankie. You just need to couch it as pro-NATO or pro-American.

              But any suggestion that Western censorship, trade sanctions, or militant policing is bad can get you tagged as a Russian Bot or Chinese Wumao.

      • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        36 months ago

        You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either. Then you get labeled an anarkiddie

        • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either.

          If you’re going all in on the “Fuck the CCP! Fuck Castro! Fuck Vuvuzela!” memes, maybe. But you need to lean in hard. Never let them think your hate is less than pure.

          Then you get labeled an anarkiddie

          Sure. Everyone knows why we need the Good Kind of Cops.

          Proceeds to scroll through Nextdoor Ring camera porch pirate posts in earnest

          • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            36 months ago

            I’m actually mixed on Castro. Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP (I stand with the Chinese leftward opposition). And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt.

            Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam. I don’t always agree with what they do, but they’re really doing their best.

            It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit

            • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              -16 months ago

              Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP

              They are very real and literal instances of Communist economic theory put into practice.

              And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt

              That’s ahistorical, if for no other reason than the full cohort of Communist policymakers in Russia weren’t hiding on a single naval base in four years after the October revolution.

              Might as well claim the CIA killed all Latin American Communists in Bolivia during 1967.

              It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit

              Anarchists repeatedly tried and failed to build working power bases, all during the 1920s. From Communes in Paris to Shanghai, from Sioux Reservations to Spanish Republicans, the fascist militaries absolutely demolished anarchist movements.

              Dengism, by contrast, secured the Chinese state from reconquest and expanded the Chinese economy to its modern apex.

              No anarchist government can claim to have ended domestic poverty, excised foreign landlords, harnessed nuclear power, or put a flag on the moon.

              Fifteen five year plans later, no other country is doing better.

              Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam.

              Sure. They’ve been phenomenal. But they are following that same Chinese playbook. Harnessing foreign investment for domestic capital improvements and cancelling the dividends into a rising quality of life is a recipe for success.

              This is textbook Marxism.

  • Nougat
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    596 months ago

    This is a little town on the north outskirts of the Dallas metro area with a population of about 38,000. The reasons they need it are innumerable. /s

    • @tektite@slrpnk.net
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      156 months ago

      Improvised Uterine Device? Medically-assisted abortions are gone but the police still need protection from coat hangers.

    • @Zink@programming.dev
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      76 months ago

      I mean those gentleman need an MRAP to keep all the ladies off of them. You never know when an IUD is going to get you.

        • Adderbox76
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          76 months ago

          Let’s not pretend the average cop isn’t too stupid to understand "I"mprovised "E"xplosive "D"evice.

          It wasn’t some “witty pun on IED and DUI”. It was an idiot cop not knowing the proper acronym, nothing more.

          • prole
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            36 months ago

            Hmm, how indeed. Maybe try some trick like holding the word in front of a mirror and see what happens?

  • @collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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    506 months ago

    Looks like they are ready to violently suppress the rioting MAGAts when they riot after their criminal leader is imprisoned. What’s that? Those that work forces are the same that burn crosses? I guess they’re ready for any counter-protestors.

  • @rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    476 months ago

    IUD?

    Intra-Uterine Device??

    How much of a threat is female birth control to these people??

  • @StaySquared@lemmy.world
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    456 months ago

    Militarization of police.

    Can’t use military on U.S. soil against its citizens? Turn police into the military to be used against its citizens.

    • @Donkter@lemmy.world
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      16 months ago

      Also: does the US have less troops on the ground around the world than they usually do? Gotta find a new market for the military industrial complex.

    • @andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      166 months ago

      I suggest anyone interested in the history of police militarization pick up Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop. There are so many tiny little towns with fully kitted out SWAT teams. Cops are taught to view themselves as soldiers in hostile territory. They go to trainings where they’re taught bullshit science to encourage them to kill.

      • @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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        26 months ago

        They are soldiers in hostile territory. They’re occupying indigenous land. Killing a cop isn’t murder, it’s warfare according to the proper rules of engagement.

    • @NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world
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      146 months ago

      Not even in Dallas. But hey, at least some small town got to employ people to build this tank, and not call it socialism.

      • @Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        116 months ago

        The “tank” was gonna be built either way. These items are purchased through a program that allows the military to sell off surplus equipment to law enforcement. So, basically, it’s a way of subsidizing the v already insane US military budget with money drawn from municipal and state taxes, while getting military hardware into the hands of cops.

        • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          26 months ago

          What makes this even better is the military hated these things. They were forced on them and completely changed the way the military had to operate. Now the police want more of them. The big change? Being able to effectively engage with the local population. Why is our military more concerned with that than the police?

      • @CPMSP@midwest.social
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        36 months ago

        It’s even stupider than that.

        It’s either military surplus or reconditioned units that are offered for resale to stateside PD’s to “pacify” civilian unrest.

    • Lord Wiggle
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      86 months ago

      It depends through which glasses you look.

      For them every black person, LGBTQ person and woman who wants to own their own body by having an abortion is a criminal. And according to right wing extremist propaganda the leftists are extremely dangerous, so I guess that would justify the purchase of military equipment.

      Do you have any idea how deadly woke people are? Every time someone shouts “black lives matter” a white Karen’s feelings are hurt. The only way to combat this is assault rifles and infantry vehicles.

        • Lord Wiggle
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          26 months ago

          Those pigs aren’t helping anyone either. I’m just being sarcastic because that’s basically the only response I can think of when reading things like this. It’s a fucking disgrace. It’s like people want to live in a dystopian shit show so bad, they don’t know how fast to dig their own grave. It’s fucking embarrassing. Yeah, awesome, let’s go for extremism and get a militarized police state, because that never went wrong. Extremism always solves all our fucking problems.

    • shastaxc
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      46 months ago

      Now check the stats for crimes involving IUDs (or IEDs)

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      46 months ago

      Very normal for suburbs (particularly white suburbs adjacent to black urban neighborhoods) to act like they’re living in a war zone, because they saw a guy in a durag smoking a scary cigarette outside of the gym.

    • @Soulg@sh.itjust.works
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      26 months ago

      I recently lived in Denton and frequently traveled to Prosper for various reasons.

      It’s a little rich person town in the middle of nowhere. They definitely don’t need this.

  • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒
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    6 months ago

    Police don’t but they often want a vehicle for SWAT related reasons, but SWAT trucks costs hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile MRAPs are “free”.

    Prosper, Texas is home to 40,000 people. In 2010 their population was under 10k. They have quadrupled in size and are near the DFW area, so it’s not really a surprise they took the 1033 offer for an MRAP. That said most of these decom’d heaps of shit are loathesomely expensive. “High Cost of Free MRAPs” by Strongtowns. Most MRAPs being given out are first and second gen versions. And for those first gens, they got sent to the front lines of the GWOT and got beat to shit while newer ones were tested and approved. These old models they’re “giving out for free” have tire drum parts never used on later versions, transmissions like that of an F650 with half the reliability, and are ticking time bombs of use. Most cities often estimate maintenance costs at $5k per year, until something actually breaks and they have to get a second MRAP to cannibalize to fix the first. (Hint - that’s why you often see them picked up in pairs or more)

    That’s before the optics. Petaluma, California has one and the police chief has even said “yeah it kinda has some bad optics sending police around in a former war machine”.

    If your city is wanting to pick one up, it’s because someone who has zero experience with them really likes the idea of a big scary diesel monster rolling up on drug houses, and hasn’t actually considered that if they can’t pony up thousands of tax dollars every 6 months to keep the moneymonster fed, the only place it’s gonna drive is into a storage shed.

    Edit: I should add that these vehicles are incredibly versatile and aren’t necessarily a bad thing for municipalities. With their ride height, sheer bulk, and high torque engines, Fire and rescue could probably make great use them in several cities. They make fantastic road clearing vehicles in the event of large accidents needing to move to the side of the road, or pushing debris out of the way. Additionally in flood prone areas they make very good rescue vehicles due to their ride height and “crew space” inside. They DO have value outside of terrorizing civilian populations, just that that’s all PDs will use them for.