Such A Deal

I remember an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" in which Barney, as part of his never-ceasing search for law and order in the rough and tumble town of Mayberry, purchased an old Army motorcycle with a sidecar. With the helmet. And the goggles. Deputy Fife is determined, with the aid of his new rolling stock, to nip speeding on Highway 6 in the bud. It's that kind of out-of-the-box thinking that made the Sheriff's office in Mayberry the height of urban pacification. Back in the day, anyway.
These days, one might wonder what kind of surplus Barney might be twitching to get his hands on, given the very generous way in which our military has filled in the gaps for many of our local law enforcement entities. The reason given by many of these constabularies was that they needed to step up their game since they didn't want the terrorists to win. They wanted to make sure that they were not outgunned. When protecting the annual Pumpkin Festival.
Okay, I can understand that in a country that is increasingly proud of their right to bear arms that keeping up with the bad guys probably has some ring of truth to it, but what about the training and care that goes along with these weapons? Like that Humvee that was stolen from the police department in Palestine, Arkansas. Police Chief Stanley Barnes said “it never crossed my mind” that someone might try to steal the vehicle, which is maybe why it took them a week to realize the Humvee was missing. Chief Barnes wasn't the only recently embarrassed officer in charge. Back in July, Sheriff Dan Bullock said St. Louis County Police picked up Michael Gray on suspicion of breaking into storage sheds. With a Humvee stolen from  the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department on loan from the federal government. At least now we have a practical use for some of these smaller departments to acquire these beasts. A recent report states that one hundred eighty-four state and local police departments have been suspended from the federal government's "1033 Program" which provides them not only with a great many military grade armaments, but the opportunity to misplace them. 
As a point of reference, it should be noted that in Barney's case, Sheriff Taylor ended up talking his overzealous deputy into donating his "cicle" to a nearby museum. That's probably where you'll find a lot of the M-16s and Humvees, as soon as the crooks are done breaking into grain silos with them.