I am a blogger from Whitewater, Wisconsin, a small town of fourteen thousand in America’s Dairyland. There is, thankfully, no large and organized local threat against our city, or thousands of other cities in rural America.
We are far from America’s fanatical foreign enemies. Richland County, South Carolina is far away, too. It’s not so far, though, that the Richland County sheriff’s Department felt it could do without….an armored personnel carrier.
Radley Balko of Reason notes that the vehicle has “a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun” [that] Sheriff Leon Lott praises because of its intimidating presence.
Balko observes that this is “a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it’s generally reserved for use against armored vehicles.”
These military weapons are lethal toys in the hands of these domestic police agencies.
For anyone who doubts as much, see the photo accompanying the Reason post, in which the members of the department pose with their new military vehicle.
Enforcement of local police matters, including narcotics offenses, can and should be conducted without military weapons.
Sheriff Lott has reduced his county to the unwise and embarrassing. America should leave military weapons and tactics to professional, full-time soldiers.
The post is available at