The
University of Minnesota announced in October it was returning
military-grade weapons that it acquired through a federal program — but
it failed to mention a few.
The
campus group Students United Against Police Brutality obtained
documents that show the University neglected to disclose ownership of
three M79 grenade launchers it received through the federal Law
Enforcement Support Office established by the Department of Defense,
whose 1033 program allows police departments to obtain surplus military
weapons for free.
I'm sure they desperately needed the six M16 and two M14 rifles, but why the grenade launchers? Problems during homecoming? Desperate students during finals?
And here's openness for you:
The University never disclosed the acquisition of the grenade launchers because it was a concern that no one brought up, said Tim Busse, a University spokesperson.
“The discussion at the time was surrounding the rifles,” he said. “Nobody asked, ‘Well do you have grenade launchers as well?’”
and
Busse said the grenade launchers were only used for training and were never deployed. He declined to comment further.
“The equipment is gone, and frankly, that’s all we have to say about that,” he said.
4 comments:
Grenade launchers are actually pretty useful since they can fire a lot more than just explosive grenades. They can fire smoke (lots of colors), tear gas, Star clusters, Illumination, and rubber pellet shotgun rounds (though these are pretty much crap). I seriously doubt this school had access to explosive grenades.
Yeah, they do have multiple possible uses; which brings up "Why the hell were they so spooky about them? Why not just SAY why?"
Of course, we are dealing with academics...
Considering there were riots on campus each year the Gopher Hockey Team won Championships, Riot Control Gear came in handy. Drunken hockey fans did immature, dangerous and stupid stuff including setting cars and parking lot offices on fire. Goes to show you, (Supposedly) well educated drunken white people can act really stupidly too.
Fortunately the Gophers had poor to mediocre teams recently.
40mm CS gas canisters are readily available for riot control. I would want something more than a single shot M79 if I was pulling the trigger.
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