Machine Gun Fire From Military Helicopters Flying Over Downtown Miami 1130
Okian Warrior writes with word that, as of Monday evening, multiple police agencies and the military were "conducting training exercises over Miami and elsewhere in the county. The exercise includes military helicopters firing machine-gun blanks while flying over highways and buildings. This YouTube video shows helicopters strafing highways with blank rounds near the Adrian Arts center. There are reports of similar actions in Houston From the Houston article: 'if you see the helicopters or hear gunfire, it's only a drill.'" Note: this time, it's not in The Onion.
This is why (Score:2, Insightful)
there's a second amendment.
Don't Worry (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, we're the government, we're here to help.
Private Joker: How can you shoot women or children?
Door Gunner: Easy! Ya just don't lead 'em so much!
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
With "exercises" of this nature, are you sure the gun nuts are so nuts after all?
waste of money (Score:4, Insightful)
Did someone think this was a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, yeah. Nothing could possibly go wrong there, right?
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to admit, this is more than a little bit sinister. Even if it's not, using civilian infrastructure to conduct fire training exercises is extremely irresponsible. I mean what if someone on the ground had panicked and crashed their car?
Re:waste of money (Score:3, Insightful)
We haven't been at risk even though we were invaded in the 1940's?
Granted, it was a remote part of Alaska, but it's still enemy troops on our soil.
A Soviet invasion was also not that far out of the questions in the decades following WWII either.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, how well is the US Military doing against the Taliban, etc. who are also armed with mostly small arms and some improvised explosive devices?
Re:What the fuck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally the "don't spend my money"ers are actually "don't spend my money except on things that cause violent death"ers.
They're all for a huge bloated military.
That being said. W.T.F. I have to agree with the GP... What the hell kind of reason do they have firing, even blanks in public areas like this. If it wasn't very well marked all over the place "military training exercise", I sure as hell hope someone gets fired/jailed for this idiocy.
Re:Food for thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Provoking (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah. With such limited weapons, they would probably be hiding behind trees and picking off targets of opportunity on their own timetable.
Seems I've heard of those kind of tactics somewhere before....
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should ask an American Indian.
If you can find one.
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a sweet spot between paranoia and complacency in which all reasonable men should dwell.
The State is a wild animal that must be kept on a leash, yet can do great good when properly trained and handled correctly.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
How much of this is because committing another crime means they are an illegal gun owner?
If I buy a gun legally, then use it to protect my drughouse and in the course of that action kill someone. Will your statistics capture me as a legal gun owner?
Re:This is why (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called blind trust, and he's certainly not alone. He will never accept that "his" government could become tyrannical and turn against him.
What happened to our usual training grounds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Our military has enormous lands throughout the U.S. including large areas of forest and desert and even uninhabited towns and cities built specifically for training exercises. The government was building lots of little makeshift towns just to blow them up with nuclear weapons during the cold war. You can find lots of videos of the government testing bombs in massive stretches of the desert. I've taken weapons training on SWAT courses that are like little ghost towns where the instructors have makeshift bridged built all over the course where they can walk above you and take notes on where you messed up something.
It's one thing to have military planes fly over civilian airspace. You have to test these planes traveling for hundreds of miles so of course they'll eventually have to fly over some commercial airspace. Or to have security training exercises be done and rehearsed at an event before it happens. Like the security teams that are not rehearsing the Super Bowl security at the actual stadium. But low flying helicopters? Shooting blanks at civilians and civilian vehicles? What possible reason could there be for that?
What's next? Armed soldiers patrolling the streets shooting blanks at people on the sidewalk? Why not? It's a perfectly safe exercise that won't cause panic at all.
"Hey it's just a training exercise...now put that cellphone camera down or we'll have to detain you. Now go home and watch American Gladiators and go back to bed".
Imagine the fun it's going to be when armed soldiers start firing blanks and some civilian has no idea what is going on and fires back. Or when people start panicking and cause a riot. I'm all for keeping a well trained military....but using our own people as the targets? What kind of self respecting soldier went on this mission without protesting it?
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the Militia Act, and it's pretty clear that the Guard isn't the Militia.
The line "every able-bodied male..." is pretty clearly NOT the Guard.
And I agree - why don't the feminists insist on being included in the militia?
Re:This is why (Score:4, Insightful)
I love the fella who says something to the effect of "if its to protect the kids I'm all for it". Right. Miltary helicopters to protect schoolchildren. you people really are fucking looney aren't you?
Re:This is why (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a sweet spot between paranoia and complacency in which all reasonable men should dwell.
The State is a wild animal that must be kept on a leash, yet can do great good when properly trained and handled correctly.
That doesn't answer the question of why the OP thinks that this incident falls into the realms of the 2nd amendment. If anything it is an action of gross stupidity and/or totally irresponsible and not a call to arms to start shooting back at the government and should be handled that way.
But if you want to go down the path of believing that the government is planning on taking aim of its citizens, do you really think that they would conduct training exercises in the middle of city like that? If the government comes for you with armed forces blazing they are not about to give you prior warning.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
That is how these statistics are often mangled.
Like the ones MADD kept for years that made any accident in which any passenger or pedestrian was in any way intoxicated into an alcohol related accident even if the driver was stone cold sober.
Re:More food for thought for the mentally starved (Score:5, Insightful)
wait, who said that members of the military would actually be *willing* to fight a war against other Americans? I'd wager you'd see the shortest war in history as the front line troops would simply refuse to fire. Key leaders would resign before giving the orders to fight, and the infrastructure would then either A. fall into unmanageable chaos or B. constrict and lock down into a state of paralysis. Either way, it's not going to be an effective force, even if it gets far enough to (unconsitutionally) deploy troops.
Re:Provoking (Score:1, Insightful)
They've made the point again and again about Newtown that the weapons were "acquired legally" by Adam Lanza's mother.
So yes, the statistics probably WOULD capture you as a legal gun owner - whether it was purchased legally has nothing to do with whether or not you're slinging crack on the street corner.
If I purchase a gun legally, and then go on a killing spree with it, that doesn't magically make the gun "illegally acquired."
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
"y i.r.id10t" said it, but it deserves saying again.
In Afghanistan, a bunch of guys with rifles (the weaponry the gun-rights advocates are trying to protect) and improvised explosives have fought the U.S. military to a stalemate for more than 12 years. That's a country of 30M people and about 650K sq km. The contiguous 48 states in the USA are 12X the land area of Afghanistan with 10X the population. What makes you think the military would be any more successful fighting a guerrilla war here?
Re:More food for thought for the mentally starved (Score:4, Insightful)
The Kent State experience shows that to the contrary - front line troops will be willing and eager to fire, if necessary on unarmed civilians.
Re:This is why (Score:2, Insightful)
actually, it will fire with blanks. gas operated systems won't cycle. i only bring this up because the military has electrically opperated weapons that will cycle without a muzzle device
OPSEC awareness month (Score:4, Insightful)
October 30, 1938. Never forget.
You be shuttin' your fool mouth John Smallberries!
Re:Provoking (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Are you that uneduated?
My AR10 will take out a fully armored military personnel easily. and remember, the military fires FMJ rounds. I'll be firing hunting rounds that when I hit his arm, it will blow off.
5.56 is what the US military fires. I'm firing 7.62 and is coveted by our troops that are currently in a war right now fighting with 5.56 rounds.
Come on back when you not only know something about guns but have actually held one.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I guess killing your mother to steal her guns is totally a legal way to acquire them...
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
Crap.... Illegal means they magically do not exist and cant be created no matter how hard you try! CURSES!
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
No excuse necessary, apparently.
But this is as likely a desensitization exercise. When we're used to our own military overflying us in urban areas we will be less likely to ask 'why?' Since our military is supposed (as in -used to be-) to not be operating against us as citizens, this is important. Get us to accept that, and a giant hurdle is overcome.
And gunfire would be a logical next step. I see they combined the two, very efficient.
Seriously, I've joked for years that I will buy another gun when my government tells me I can't have one. I should not wait, for that is too late.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
This was an interesting observation, thank you. I have long been concerned about this observation of Orwell:
This is from an article he wrote about the atom bomb [george-orwell.org]. When I look at the rising expense and sophistication of modern militaries, and at the neo-colonialism my own dear patria and its allies seem willing to engage in, the future looks quite dark. But the cheapness and effectiveness of modern small arms and guerrilla tactics may be just coming into its own.
There is a scenario where the new possibilities for independence may not lie with people but with large organizations like governments. What makes it possible for asymmetrical warfare to be successful on the part of the weaker defender is that he is able to inflict asymmetical costs on the attacker. Drones may be changing that. If drones do not also find their way into private hands, like small arms, or if they don't turn out to be easily hackable, then future wars will rarely involve liabilities like tanks. In several countries the U.S. in involved in, this is already the case.
Re:More food for thought for the mentally starved (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually thought of that when I posted, but it's really quite a different thing to take policing action at a violent, arson-fueled riot than it would be to invade Denver with tanks, as had been suggested in a post above. Would there be a few hotheads in fear of their lives claiming self defense, like at Kent? Sure, probably... but a planned "invasion" against Americans? Not gonna happen. Cooler heads would prevail.
The cooler heads didn't prevail for Aaron Swartz did they? Nor at the invasion of Iraq, nor at the congressional level to spy on Americans. What makes you think these people won't authorize the full use of force against the population of Detroit because of a few bad apples protesting? What did the US Government collect on the Occupy protesters and why won't they tell us? Why let police in riot gear pepper spray protesters who are sitting still? Did you forget all these things already? You did because we (all of us), have collectively moved onto the latest new thing. Why would you trample on the rights of Americans?
Because you can. Only later do you actually have some court "review" it if it ever gets there. Dead Americans is a guarantee. When, where and how much is the only unknown.
Re:Provoking (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe they're illegal in Afghanistan too.
Drugs are illegal in the US.
Point?
Shooting... a Movie? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did any of the news organizations offering this reactionary reporting actually check with the local authorities to see if the helicopters were being used in for a movie shoot?
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
"Basically tanks can't see very well, can only shoot in one direction (and slowly) and are remarkably fragile other than frontal armor hits"
As a former Airborne Rifle Squad Leader in the 82nd, and former Bradley Master Gunner in the 1st CAV, I can assure you that this hasn't been the case in the last 30 or more years.
1. American tanks have an advantage in weapon range (commonly called standoff) over Infantry units. It's difficult to kill a tank if it can park and take potshots at you beyond your ability to effectively return fire.
2. They each have a TTS (tank thermal sight) that can display images based on a single degree of temperature difference, and combat as an infantrymen has a tendency to dramatically raise body temperature so that you literally glow in their sights.
3. The tank commander and gunner each have an independently operated sight, and the commander can shift and designate a new target while the gunner is still engaging the old target.
4. They can travel easily over moderate (not pristine) terrain at speeds greater than 45 MPH.
"Combined arms only works if... its combined... "
Yes. That also applies to the infantry.
So here's a thought. Go spend two or three hours walking around your local hardware store collecting the items you will need to kill (or at least render ineffective) an M1 Abrahms. Then figure out how you'll kill the other 100+ M1's that are right behind it.
Good luck, pal.
Shock and awe (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what we are seeing now may be something like standard game-theoretical escalation (between 'government' and 'citizenry').
Since the (corruption-driven) economic crisis, an increase in resistance-like protests have put those in power on edge. Perceiving increased resistance from a portion of the population, those in power are purposely scaling up their defenses against potential resistance (increased surveillance and attempts at gun control, bills like HR 347 and executive orders that grant extraordinary powers, usurpation of due process and indefinite detention etc.).
The game-theoretical result of this is that at the grassroots level, a small but steadily increasing proportion of the citizenry starts to (basically rightfully) sense that the government is escalating against the citizenry. This fuels further calls for resistance, calls for revolution from some quarters, the massively increased gun sales and stockpiling we've seen, and so on.
The game-theoretical result of that in turn is a government saying "oh shit, the people look increasingly likely to revolt", and the result of that is this kind of escalation - a raw display of brute power intended to demonstrate that we'd better all keep in line, "or else" - it's a kind of veiled threat, a kind of shock and awe tactic. "Behave citizens, or next time there'll be real bullets".
We're currently on a game-theory escalation path to increasing fascism and oppression and possibly a prolonged low-grade guerilla-style 'civil war' (though it will never be called a civil war, it will be called 'terrorism').
The proper solution is that both people and government need to try work with each other as partners toward a common goal, both 'sides' need to calm down and negotiate with mutual interest in the concerns (and rights) of the 'other side'.
In reality the government is now so corrupt and overtaken by corporatist interests (e.g. banks who are now supposedly too powerful even to prosecute for serious crimes, and a 'fox guarding the henhouse' situation at the treasury and Fed) that it might not be possible for true cooperation.
Re:Provoking (Score:2, Insightful)
the defectors that don't want to kill their own families.
How'd that work out in every other civil war in the history of man?
Re:Provoking (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok, you mine an area. Slows down tanks, gets a few kills, cost effectively destroys some equipment. Congrats.
Exactly how is that going to win a war though? I mean, great, now you get to live in a fucking minefield, until they finally get around to sweeping it. I know sweeping mines is dangerous, because i play the mine sweeping simulator that came with windows, but still. They can bring in helicopters. If you have shit that can shoot down helicopters, congratulations, you have yourselves a military target that is not against any conventions to shoot tomahawks at from the fucking ocean. How many fucking attack subs does your revolution have?
And you recruited the people to fight this war from the most affluent country in the world, that has a public health problem of obesity.
You realize that every country in the fucking world is going to contribute to the U.S. governments side, because there are enough nukes at stake to blow up the world 20 times over?
The whole thing is fucking stupid. A meaningful revolution cannot be fought with small arms alone, anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to sell you an assault rifle. These same people say we should have more tanks, and gunships, and bombers, and cruise missiles, and fighter jets, because they want to sell your government more tanks, and gunships, and bombers, and cruise missiles, and fighter jets.
Re:More food for thought for the mentally starved (Score:5, Insightful)
do it the same way every totalitarian government does, by using soldiers with existing general hostilities to the population they will be suppressing
send the bible belt soldiers to police the godless liberal traitors in california
send the black soldiers to police the cracka racists in the south
send the northeastern soldiers to police the whackjob traitors in the midwest
send the deep southern soldiers to police the coward yankee bastards up north.
if the soldiers you send to each area, blame the people from that area for starting "all of this" they will for the most part follow their orders as long as said orders are not profoundly outrageous "go machinegun some peaceful civillians" but an order to "keep that riot under control, and by the way rules of engagement allow automatic weapons and hand grenades if your life is in danger" will work just fine.
Also at the beginning you keep the rules of engagement too strict and the patrols too small and too sparse until something happens to one of them.
Re:What the fuck... (Score:4, Insightful)
If there were an official definition of 'ignorant douche' you would be it.
Problem is there are any number of official dictionaries. In mine, your picture is next to the 'ignorant douche' entry. In yours, my picture is there. And in everyone's copy, their own picture is next to the 'sane patriotic American' entry.
Re:Provoking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
They wouldn't be killing American citizens, they would be killing "Terrorists". And they probably don't have the time between one mission and another to try and check if the orders were actually right.
And their families would be likely in entirely another part of the US. Those giving orders, be their accurate or evil, are not dumb.
Re:Provoking (Score:5, Insightful)
That "hearts and minds" thing is complete and utter bullshit. I sorta believed in that shit when I was a boot, fresh out of boot camp. Sorta. That wore off, though.
YOU DO NOT WIN HEARTS AND MINDS BY MARCHING ARMED GRUNTS AROUND FOREIGN CITIES AND COUNTRIES!!
Either you were genuinely, openly invited to be there - or you're an invader. Invaders aren't loved anywhere. Hearts and minds are dead set against invaders, always and forever.
Re:Provoking (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Provoking (Score:4, Insightful)
Right back to my original "Stupidity or desperation can force infantry into being slaughtered by armor, but it usually doesn't turn out that way"
Yes, when standing in an empty field and throwing rocks, or an unarmed refugee column, infantry have a rough time of it vs tanks
The ideal way to fight a tank is not to make a better tank out of hardware store parts and then slug it out on fair ground fighting tank style using tank rules. Now yes yes you are correct a M1A1 can actually do that and win vs an old T-72. But that's not the point.
One thing will stop a tank dead in the city... a bedsheet. Whats behind that sheet... hmm. You can fire a round to clear, but sheets are cheaper than rounds and the ammo supply truck is unarmored and the sound of a tank firing does kind of give away your position. Its fun to pile junk up in the road and make a roadblock, especially since who knows what is under the pile that can go boom if you crash into it. Also you're going to freeze for a second thinking about it, great time for the opposition to... Also throwing tracks isn't very hard to do and hardware stores are full of tough tangly stuff. Tanks burn pretty well too and the underbelly armor isn't very impressive although layers of sandbags help. Really all you need to do is blow a track off and its all over, you hardly need to vaporize the entire hull. Regardless of whatever else, the crew eventually have to get out of the tin can, we have no armored fuel tankers that I know of, etc. Yes combined arms action with infantry helps with these tank-busting tactics. But then you're right back to snipers popping infantry on their home ground and you're making the infantry less effective than sending them in without the tanks.
I think we're rather talking at cross points. The original claim was tanks are a magic silver bullet. I say they aren't. You say they're really very capable tanks. I say, yeah, but they're still tanks, not silver bullets. Not sure where we'll go from here.
Then figure out how you'll kill the other 100+ M1's that are right behind it.
LOL you pop the first one and the last one to block them into the narrow city street in an ambush and then the real fun begins. Again this is one of those things where doing something dumb in an open field probably won't turn out well, but the professionals can pretty much have their way with the tanks as long as its on their own schedule.
Warfare is all about position rather than specs. Get in the right position and you win. True, the specs might limit the "proper" position, but it always exists.