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The “But Our Police have Tanks” meme needs to die

I'm sorry if this is off topic, but this is a large radical space and people need to hear this. There are a lot of reasons Americans do not riot, and our police are extremely capable. I in particular fear their capacity for surveillance. But no, your police do not have tanks. If you live in a large city, your police might have unarmed wheeled APCs or an old tracked M113. Most likely, your police have unarmed MRAPs. In a riot control situation, they will put a dude in the cupola with a handheld 40mm grenade launcher or some kind AR-15. Militant labor action in the early 1900s faced armored cars with machine gun turrets. The French gendarmes, Ukrainian Berkut, and various other state police forces around the world have most of the same capabilities as American cops do, at least in the streets, and are in some ways more…


I'm sorry if this is off topic, but this is a large radical space and people need to hear this. There are a lot of reasons Americans do not riot, and our police are extremely capable. I in particular fear their capacity for surveillance.

But no, your police do not have tanks. If you live in a large city, your police might have unarmed wheeled APCs or an old tracked M113. Most likely, your police have unarmed MRAPs. In a riot control situation, they will put a dude in the cupola with a handheld 40mm grenade launcher or some kind AR-15.

Militant labor action in the early 1900s faced armored cars with machine gun turrets. The French gendarmes, Ukrainian Berkut, and various other state police forces around the world have most of the same capabilities as American cops do, at least in the streets, and are in some ways more militarized and scarier. I've already mentioned that mass surveillance is much more prevalent here, and we have a very anti-activist court system. But when reaching for an excuse to not be in the streets, say that, don't say “Our cops have tanks” because they don't. Even if the National Guard gets called to your city, they probably won't bring tanks, they'll probably be mounted in MRAPs and Stryker ICVs.

A tank is a heavy tracked vehicle that is used for breakthrough and exploitation and employs direct fire as its primary means of attack. An unarmed APC is not a tank.

We saw the extent of the police's capabilities in the 2020 George Floyd uprising, and in many major cities the police were completely overwhelmed, even when they had the support of the National Guard. We saw extreme brutality from the police, and in the months since the American surveillance apparatus has identified many people, and activists like Winston Smith in Minneapolis have been murdered by Federal death squads. But at no point did we see tanks used against protesters. So let this meme die.

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