NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#51

Post by poulsbohemian » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

barsonme wrote: post #29

amcnett wrote: post #14

I was surprised to see a number of mine-resistant vehicles associated with very rural counties in Washington State. Not being completely sure whether a mine-resistant vehicle was a tank or not, I googled the term and came across this article: http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-inh... Choice quote from the article: “Here’s the thing,” Shellmyer says. “Washington, Iowa, has 8,000 people. We have a…

I live in Puyallup, Washington and we've received (what I believe to be) an MRAP. (It looks like one, but I've yet to see it outside of the building so I haven't gotten a very good look at it.) It's housed in the police/fire station downtown. Puyallup is a "city" of just under 40,000. Our crime isn't even too horrible ( http://www.piercecountycrimedata.org/NeighborhoodCrime/index... ) But we have an MRAP. It might be…

I live in Walla Walla and I don't see our MRAP in the NYT spreadsheet, but here's the article: http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/apr/16/walla-walla-swat-.... Absolute madness.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#52

Post by amcnett » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:50 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #41

comrh wrote: post #31

Yikes: AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12 AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12 AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12 AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12 AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12 AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,E…

Presumably for tear gas / smoke rounds?

Probably not t-shirts at Gators games.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#53

Post by stormcloud » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:52 PM UTC

I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece.

Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#54

Post by rpedela » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:54 PM UTC

thewopr wrote: post #16

Quick question, is the apache license really the most relevant for a dataset? Does that license apply? I ask only because I'm planning on doing something similar.

Apache is probably okay for data, but I would recommend Open Data Commons or Creative Commons licenses.

http://opendefinition.org/licenses/

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#55

Post by amcnett » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:55 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #46

ceejayoz wrote: post #39

One county on the map has ~16k population and 640 military surplus assault rifles. If they're equipped with 30 round magazines, they can shoot everyone in the county without reloading once.

No, they couldn't shoot more than a few people before thousands of armed citizens made them stop. To help clarify things: the city of LA has 10,000 police officers and 1,000,000+ armed citizens.

Disorganized pseudo-infantry (i.e. pissed off individuals with guns) will always be inferior to organized paramilitary forces with armor.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#56

Post by amcnett » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

stormcloud wrote: post #53

I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece. Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?

Imagine, or hope?

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#57

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

amcnett wrote: post #55

staunch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they couldn't shoot more than a few people before thousands of armed citizens made them stop. To help clarify things: the city of LA has 10,000 police officers and 1,000,000+ armed citizens.

Disorganized pseudo-infantry (i.e. pissed off individuals with guns) will always be inferior to organized paramilitary forces with armor.

[deleted]

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#58

Post by BugBrother » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

teachingaway wrote: post #48

I see 205 of "Launcher, Grenade" followed by only 1 of "Laundry, Cleaner"

As a European which don't follow the subject of US police, my TV habits are not crime dramas, I just have to ask:

WTF are police going to do with grenade launchers?! (Do they have 155 mm artillery too? :-) )

Are those for tear gas? I just don't believe even US gangs are doing Taliban style insurrections or Intifadas?

(Being Swedish with our really open borders for refugees from the Middle East, I should just wait a few years and find out why police need heavy weaponry? :-) :-( )

Edit: Other commenters seem to say (a) These really aren't needed by police, (b) there are lots of surplus weapons from Iraq/Afghanistan. Why aren't those extra weapons just sold/donated to countries which need them? Like most neighbors of Russia, they ought to be starting with big defense investments right now (except for the complete crazies, see Swedish politicians.)

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#59

Post by DanielBMarkham » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 10:01 PM UTC

Couple of random observations after looking at the data:

1) Looks like a contest where the winners are folks who are able to pull the biggest political strings in DC. It has nothing to do with forces needing anything. This was a free-for-all giveaway. It's all political.

2) In defense of DoD, once you build this crap, it's gotta go somewhere. Maybe some of these MRAPs could only be used for local parades. Local PDs do not need this junk, but the rest of the country doesn't need it either. Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot. As long as Joe doesn't start getting delusions of terrorism.

3) A lot of the local rural counties where I live got M16s. I guess that seems useful. The M16 is a fine rifle, and if you could get every one of your cops a proven rifle it sure beats trying to get the poor local governments to pay for them. The cities are a different story: much better connected and with more resources (and ambition?) to screw as much out of the system as possible. The nearest city to me is getting all kinds of idiotic stuff. Do we really need 20 $4k night vision sniper scopes? Perhaps if the city were attacked by protesting vampires such a purchase would be useful. But I guess guys gotta play with their toys.

The distribution alone is not worth ranting about. The problem is what happens once all this junk is distributed. If you own a bear gun, you have a tendency to go out into the woods hunting bears. You also see evidence of bears where others do not. That's the real problem.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#60

Post by guimarin » Tue, Aug 19, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

stormcloud wrote: post #53

I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece. Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?

You don't think they 'actually spend $20k on a hammer, $30k on a toilet seat, do you'[1]? If this is not an error, I think we just found the best justification I've seen for making all budgets/purchases etc. in government publicly available via API, as this and the ones below are amazing finds.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129