Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 140 posts

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#101

Post by alxndr »

ejfox wrote: post #64
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #59

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 d…

> Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot. This is a central assumption the DoD/Government has been making, that is turning out to be misguided if not flat-out wrong. The police in this country are not properly trained as to when to deploy this equipment, and when it's deployed, how to use it. Just as spreading weapons of war to all parts of the middle east hasn't exactly lead to peace there, spreading we…

Yeah,

> As long as Joe doesn't start getting delusions of terrorism.

...seems to be the real problem.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

thewopr wrote: post #85
teachingaway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the dataset comes from the Gov't (e.g., Freedom of Info Act), one might argue that its public domain data. If its public domain, then slapping a license on it doesn't change anything. If its not public domain, and you want people to use it fairly freely, Apache seems like a good license. Disclaimer: i haven't thought about this very carefully before posting. Could be wrong. One thing I do know is that @copiesofcop…

Yeah, I would tend to agree with this. These data are derived from work originally done by the U.S. federal government. If they had chosen to make it freely available without a FOIA, public domain would have applied. I don't think having it being a result of a FOIA changes anything.

Correct. If it comes from the government it's automatically public domain, and according to the repo description the NYT is just sharing what the government provided. NYT is getting very good at the digital journalism approach, I'm pleasantly surprised to see them using Github for this.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#103

Post by bitexploder »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #98
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.

You already have the National Guard out in Missouri, and they have Blackhawk helicopters which have chain guns as their standard armament. The idea that in the US civil militias could really hold their own against the state is an absurd fiction. Unless significant portions of the armed forces defected to join an uprising and managed to take their equipment with them, then it would be very one sided. The militias will…

I just have to say, for a long time, I have read sentiments like yours. Namely that, because the government has the big arms, they can win a fight against a civil militia. I would argue that we need to look no further than the middle east and how intense urban warfare really is to see that big weapons don't help. When you can't reliably root out the enemy force from the civilian force it is very hard to apply your big weapons. When the enemy eschews the Internet and uses traditional couriers (like the ISIS leader), they can be very hard targets. All that technology and weaponry, but you still need somewhere to aim it. Look how long it took to get OBL. It would be a brutal civil war. Brother against brother again, if it ever happened at scale in the US.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#104

Post by lotsofmangos »

bitexploder wrote: post #103
lotsofmangos wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already have the National Guard out in Missouri, and they have Blackhawk helicopters which have chain guns as their standard armament. The idea that in the US civil militias could really hold their own against the state is an absurd fiction. Unless significant portions of the armed forces defected to join an uprising and managed to take their equipment with them, then it would be very one sided. The militias will…

I just have to say, for a long time, I have read sentiments like yours. Namely that, because the government has the big arms, they can win a fight against a civil militia. I would argue that we need to look no further than the middle east and how intense urban warfare really is to see that big weapons don't help. When you can't reliably root out the enemy force from the civilian force it is very hard to apply your bi…

Sometimes it goes down that way, if the military feels it needs to hold back and win the narrative, not just the ground.

On home soil it may well do this, but equally it may go completely nuts if it feels subject to a genuine existential threat.

Look to the end of the Tamil Tigers for an example of what a modern military is capable of against insurgents when it pulls out all the stops. - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/17/death-of-the-ti...

And remember that the Tamil Tigers were one of the most experienced of the various guerrilla groups around the world.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#105

Post by existencebox »

wisty wrote: post #44

It's lucky crime rates have dropped so low. You wouldn't want this kind of hardware lying around if there was any chance the wrong king of person could get their hands on it. It would make a great movie or game premise though.

It's called saints row. (Although more of a comical than a dystopian twist, but the latter is certainly hinted at.) One of their primary plotlines is taking down an overmilitarized police force with their own gear.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#106

Post by staunch »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #104
bitexploder wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just have to say, for a long time, I have read sentiments like yours. Namely that, because the government has the big arms, they can win a fight against a civil militia. I would argue that we need to look no further than the middle east and how intense urban warfare really is to see that big weapons don't help. When you can't reliably root out the enemy force from the civilian force it is very hard to apply your bi…

Sometimes it goes down that way, if the military feels it needs to hold back and win the narrative, not just the ground. On home soil it may well do this, but equally it may go completely nuts if it feels subject to a genuine existential threat. Look to the end of the Tamil Tigers for an example of what a modern military is capable of against insurgents when it pulls out all the stops. - http://www.newyorker.com/maga…

Comparing the Tamil Tigers and a popular uprising of 200 million armed Americans is laughable.

Your mistaken notion that a rebellion can't fight a sophisticated military has been decisively disproved over the last decade in the middle east. Plausibly debated 15 years ago but now we know you're wrong.

ISIS took control of a large part of Iraq and Syria and they started with small arms. They took over army bases and stole gear (didn't think of that?). IDF has been throwing the best technology in the world at Hamas for decades. They're stronger than ever because they have popular support.

Suggesting that the U.S. military would fight against a popular uprising is beyond crazy and entirely ignorant. You can't know how our military works, or who it's made up of, and think that. This is crazier than any common conspiracy theory you can think of.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#107

Post by hughdbrown »

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…

From your article: "The supply of extra MRAPs is likely to only increase — the government spent $50 billion to produce 27,000 of them in 2007."

Can someone explain the math to me? It sounds like each vehicle costs $2 million.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#108

Post by eitally »

munificent wrote: post #83
partacus wrote: post #72

Sorted from most greedy to least, wow, look at Florida: State Amount FL $252,801,365.49 AL $117,321,970.75 TX $93,960,116.66 CA $92,199,594.55 TN $88,036,810.05 GA $74,258,127.54 IL $63,856,929.46 SC $49,446,894.25 MI $43,557,552.29 IN $43,153,872.84 OH $41,066,993.83 KY $38,672,666.63 PR $37,712,132.94 AZ $37,173,754.35 OK $26,113,459.50 NM $25,077,905.94 NY $24,920,353.44 VA $24,257,646.82 NJ $24,075,459.47 WA $23,…

That's a meaningless comparison unless you account for population differences. Per capita would be useful to show.

I think what might make more sense is to account for the location of large military bases.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#109

Post by staunch »

jfoutz wrote: post #62
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.

Yeah, that worked really well in Ludlow. I can't think of any other cases in the US where armed civilians were up against automatic weapons. I'd be delighted to see some more examples.

There are more than enough examples around the world if you are actually interested in learning that you're wrong.

Re: NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub

#110

Post by staunch »

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.

Not with popular support it's not. For proof that the opposite is actually true see Vietnam/Iraq/Syria/Gaza/Egypt, etc.
Post reply on HN