How to buy military weapons banned for civilians, with the help of the police

November 7, 2001 2:20 AM

How to buy military weapons banned for civilians, with the help of the police - In a small Missouri town, a 72-year old man and 3 buddies bought weapons and accessories banned for private ownership claiming they were part of a "volunteer deputy" SWAT team. The police chief at the time agreed, although only one of them was a police deputy doing 4 hours a week of police work. The new police chief, a person with real experience in SWAT teams, freaked out when he heard of the agreement, which lets the "fantasy" deputies keep the weapons locked in the trunk of their cars. City officials aren't happy either, perhaps be because they were not informed at the time of the deal ("we wanted to keep it low key, you don't want the bad guys to know our tactics"). Many neighbors of the single-stop-light-type of town praise the good intentions of the men, but members of professional SWAT deny in several ways their ability to deal with any high-intensity situation. A very entertaining read picked up at obscurestore.com
posted by magullo (8 comments total)

Y'know, one or two of those sentences would have been just dandy to get people to read it. Now I'm not sure I need bother to click through.
posted by dhartung at 6:39 AM on November 7, 2001

There is plenty more ...
posted by magullo at 6:49 AM on November 7, 2001

Back around '79 or '80 the small town of Whitewright, Texas, which had a police force of about three, bought six full-auto M-16s. Maybe they thought John Rambo was going to attack a la First Blood, but I always wondered what the ostensible justification was for that li'l arms deal.
posted by alumshubby at 6:53 AM on November 7, 2001

Anyone else having that Dead Kennedys song playing in their head?

We are the Goons of Hazard,
Glorified on your TV...

posted by adampsyche at 7:14 AM on November 7, 2001

A 72yo self-identified member of a SWAT team.. Hilarious!

But at least their local government takes the second amendment more seriously than my home town, Washington, DC.
posted by Witold at 8:12 AM on November 7, 2001

Too bad the people in that town don't have the right to keep old loons with machine guns out of their town.
posted by pracowity at 8:22 AM on November 7, 2001

A 72yo self-identified member of a SWAT team

Cool! Can I be Batman?
posted by jpoulos at 8:57 AM on November 7, 2001

The one fallacy of this article is that the weapons of this type could not have been purchased for private ownership. They certainly can and are - one of my friends owns both weapons in question plus numerous other automatic weapons. The difference being that there are a limited number of privately transferable weapons (thank you Mr. Klinton) and one must apply for a Class III license to purchase one. It also changes the cost of the weapons dramatically so instead of paying $8,177 for all eight guns, they would have more than likely paid $8,000 each.
posted by RevGreg at 1:19 PM on November 7, 2001