Video: Trump Grants Access to Military Gear for State and Local Police Forces
OutdoorHub Reporters 08.29.17
Police are cheering after the Trump administration lifted an Obama sanctioned ban on military equipment being provided to law enforcement.
This new order is set to take effect immediately, and goes completely against the grain of a 2015 Obama administration executive order that denied police access to some surplus military equipment, including tracked armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms and large-caliber weapons and ammunition.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said the reversal is overdue and was based on wrongful impressions of how officers were using the equipment.
“There isn’t a police department in America that is launching fragmentation grenades,” Bouchard said. “There isn’t a police department in America that is fixing bayonets, either,” he continued.
Bouchard explained the grenade launchers are shotgun-sized and strictly used to fire tear gas or flares.
Not everyone was in favor of the repeal, however.
Shelli Weisberg, political director for the ACLU of Michigan worries it sends the wrong message.
And Janai Nelson, associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said it’s “exceptionally dangerous” and “irresponsible” for the Trump administration to grant our police officers with certain surplus military equipment.
