Economic Stimulus Money Helping Police Upgrade Firearms

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As the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reported, “Across America, police departments are using the taxpayer-funded stimulus bill to boost their arsenals with shotguns, handguns, and assault rifles. Take the city of Jeffersonville, Ind. Police there are spending $63,000 of their stimulus bill money to buy 74 new assault rifles for their police cruisers.”

In Barre, Vermont, the local police department, “used stimulus money to buy six new handguns, 21 Taser guns, and five new shotguns, including one non-lethal version that shoots bean bags. As part of its request for stimulus funds, Arlington, Texas, included $56,000 for military-grade carbines,” for city police.

According to CSM, “Andy Molchan, director of the Professional Gun Retailers Association in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., says part of the growing profit statements from gunmakers such as Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Sig come courtesy of the American taxpayer by way of some of America's 14,000 police jurisdictions.”

“They [law enforcement agencies] like to upgrade when they can,” Molchan said. “If there’s [grant] money there, an agency is going to try to spend it.”