Bayonets? Really?
There has been a lot of talk about the militarization of the law enforcement community and we’ve been talking about it here for years. There’s an article on Stars & Stripes today about it and they cataloged some of the items that police departments have bought, since the article came from the Detroit Free Press originally, they focus on Michigan;
A Free Press review of items transferred from the military since 2006 shows Michigan law enforcement agencies have received 17 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles or MRAPs, built to counter roadside bombs; 1,795 M16 rifles, the U.S. military’s combat weapon of choice; 696 M14 rifles; 530 bayonet and scabbards; 165 utility trucks; 32 12-gauge, riot-type shotguns; nine grenade launchers; and three observation helicopters.
The part that got me, though, was bayonets. What in the name of all that is good are they doing with bayonets? I know it’s probably the cheapest thing on their list, but did anyone really think about it? I’ve never used a bayonet on a person in combat, but I’ve thought about it a lot. I own a few bayonets, but just to complete a rifle, from a collector’s standpoint – and I adhere to the “Spirit of the Bayonet”. It’s a last resort weapon, and probably the most terrifying to use, from both the viewpoint of the guy trying to use it as well as the fellow on the receiving end.
It takes a lot of training to use a bayonet, but since there’s no noise or big explosion, I’m guessing not too many police departments spend much time training with it. But I’m concerned that some police units out there thought that having a few hundred bayonets in their inventory would be a good idea.
I know that the original rifles had bayonets as it’s primary function – a pike that also occasionally fired a bullet – but I can’t think of any situation in which a police department would tell it’s officers to “fix bayonets” like they are the 20th Maine on Little Round Top.
If they decide to begin divesting themselves of some of that equipment, I’ll take an M14 off their hands. I’ve always wanted one of those. There are no Garands on the list, but I’d like one of those, too. But I have just enough bayonets, thank you.
Category: Police
This story hits close to home.
The fake trainer in me thinks,”Praying for entrenching tools. Praying for entrenching tools.”
The Giduck in me thinks, “Donuts with sprinkles. Donuts with sprinkles”.
sincerely
John “Faker 6” Giduck
Bayonets? Dammit, I want one. I don’t care what the President said in that debate with Romney, a bayonet has a certain intimidation factor. A cop with a bayonet, though? Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
I was about to say, I will always love bayonets because of that debate.
I’ll take an M9 bayonet, please; I need it to keep my M7 bayonet company…
Here ya go! Not sure if the triwall box is included or not….
http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=8187944&convertTo=USD
I need for my M1, however,I’m also keeping my eye on this category: http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/search?cmd=results&lvl1=29&lvl2=4470
Three M14s with bayonets,Please.This would help with my collection of firearms that shot at me in Nam.That is if I had lost them in Lake Keystone. Fulton Arms lets you pick how you want your M14 built. Money is holding me back. My new place needs lots of yard work. Next open thread,I will try to post a picture of my backyard. Joe
Too had the M14s fall under the ATF’s “once a machinegun always a machinegun” thing that you won’t find in any actual law.
If the government would sell them, you can still own those made before May 1986, which I think is pretty much all of them. But don’t think the current administration would allow it.
To answer your question:
The M-14s and Bayonets are for the Police Honor Guard Units to use at Funerals/Firing Party-(3Volleys) and at official ceremonies requiring an Honor Guard.
Inside the community, we are requested to perform these functions often.
Thanks for this. I also thought crazy shit until you posted. It makes sense to me now.
I would certainly hope so, but what’s the likelihood that at least some of these organizations may not wind up employing them in the Honor Guard role? There’s already enough cops (some of whom really shouldn’t be cops) running around looking like they’re about to retake Fallujah. I’m generally pro-LE on most issues, but the idea of even one of the Ossifer Fifes in question getting his hands on a bayonet (you know guys like that will be looking for an excuse to use it) gives me pause.
You don’t need a bayonet to fire a salute. Marines at MCRD did burial details several times a month when I was there. I do not recall them using a bayonet one single time.
COPS DONT NEED BAYONETS PERIOD
Before I got out one of my units was involved in “Less than Lethal” Training.
The premise was that there could be situations where we would be assigned to do crowd control during humanitarian misions or helping secure an embassy.
People assigned a job use the tools they are given. When you give a cop a rifle and a bayonet he can only respond with deadly force.
Less than lethal covered the standard riot gear ( shields and clubs) plus things like pepper spray, sticky foam and extremely loud niose and heat rays.
You know, ways to control a crowd without sticking them with a sharp object. Thats what cops need, not bayonets.
Too “bad” even.
What in the name of all that is good are they doing with bayonets?
It’s kewl, let’s get us some kewl shit!
There are two possible innocent explanations that can be explored.
1) Along with the M14s to complete a ceremonial kit. I believe a number of the M14s were meant for color guards and the bayonets may be the same… now should police color guards carry bayonets is another question.
2) Some bayonets are more tool than pointed weapon. I have seen some that are fiberglass and meant to probe for mines and others that act as wire-cutters. It would depend on the model of bayonet requisitioned.
Bayonets? How about a SWAT team (Cobb County GA) with an HK21? For those that don’t know what an HK21 is…it’s a belt fed machine gun (7.62).
Wannabes? It is scary.
Yeah, that’s a bit much. Problem is, once these guys get weapons like this, they feel they have to use them. Imagine the carnage that would ensue if this thing was used in an urban environment. I’m just hoping that the maintenance needs of these types of weapons will minimize their use because there is no reason for ANY municipal police force to have a Squad level automatic weapon.
Actually, as part of the “1033” program they are required to make use of the property within 1 year.
Required to “deploy” the item. That can mean that it’s available for use to trained officers, not that they have to physically employ it on a crowd.
And not to nitpick, but since the HK21 is a Germany weapon that is not in the US inventory, I don’t think that it’s covered under the 1033 program unless the Bundeswehr is giving their surplus to American law enforcement agencies. Just sayin.
I asked them how they got it…they simply put in a requisition…county commissioners don’t know. Unreal!
They use them in the ghetto areas of Detroit to make sure those Gramma’s down there don’t get out of hand when they raid their houses that double as crack dens for their grandkids !!!
Them Gramma’s are a dangerous sort of desperado you know !!!
But … But … But I thought POTUS said we don’t use bayonets (and horses) anymore!
Just sayin’!
Horses (like guns) should be outlawed! There is no reason for anyone to have a horse in this day and age. All they do is hurt people….like Superman, and he died. They hurt The Children too! If Obama really cared about The Children he would just use his pen to outlaw horses once and for all!
I have heard of horses and fixed bayonets both coming in really handy in recent wars.
Seems Afghanistan has demonstrated that horses and mules can still go where tanks, trucks, and choppers can’t.
I remember hearing about an occasion a couple years ago, also in Afghanistan, where some British infantry found themselves short on ammo while suffering from a Taliban problem. The problem was quickly solved when they fixed bayonets, charged, shishkebab’ed a few of the fuckers, and put the fear of God in the rest.
Therefore I give that assertion by the Glorious Leader the same credence as anything else that comes out of his mouth: absolutely none.
That said, I own a couple of bayonets for some of my vintage rifles, including a long-blade M1942 bayonet for my Garand. Would I ever try to use it? Well, my knowledge of bayonet fighting consists of “stab ’em with the sharp end,” so probably not. Then again, most of the assholes I could potentially need to use it against don’t know any more about it than I do, so…
I believe that the Scots Regiment has conducted Bayonet charges in both Iraq and Afghanistan. (once each)
And yet, after lists like this get published, the various law enforcers and politicians still wonder why more and more people are worried about militarization of the police and wondering if this means the Feds want to nationalize all law enforcement at some point soon.
Bayonets, huh? Pointy-ended knives that serve no purpose for a police officer.
Well, maybe those police departments are running out of plastic knives in the department kitchens, so they’re issuing bayonets as eating daggers, like the peasants used to use in the Dark Ages. That, and a round loaf of stale bread hollowed out as a trencher, and you’ve got a regular old serf dinner place setting.
Ceremonial uses? Okay, 530 ceremonial bayonets? That’s a lot of ceremony….
Maybe some day we’ll stop using military shit with our police forces and address what’s actually ailing us, prohibition and the lucrative criminality that always accompanies prohibition. Let’s keep thinking that more MRAPs will win the drug war….if we fought WW2 like we are fighting the drug war the western half of the nation would be under the rising sun while the eastern half wore swastikas.
The drug war has been as wildly successful as the French defense of the Ardennes in May 1940….time to decide whether we want to keep making cops in armored gear a priority in a war they are losing badly or cut bait and learn from the repeal of prohibition that gang control of contraband disappears when the contraband is legal.
Nobody buys Budweiser from the Latin Kings…
VOV…Of late I have been thinking more along the lines you are positing. It would have to be done carefully by intelligent lawmakers and that leaves out Obama and almost everyone I can think of in the current legislature. But, if done correctly, I think this problem could be turned to the nation’s benefit instead of its plague.
Bayonets??? I’m with LT above. I want one and I’m with Jonn, I want a couple of the M14s too.
Sparks…….Back in the day I was the only guy in my squad who carried a bayonet. It came in real handy in cooking my C rat pork slices!
Or making a hole in a Fresca can.
That would work. As long as you’re careful not to get any Fresca on yourself.
Or on the bayonet. When that happens,it calls for an immediate wipe down with a GAA soaked shop rag and a whetstone to reshape the tip.
It would seem to me, hearing the order: ” fix bayonets! ” and then the LEO’s begain marching would quickly put an end to the rioting in Ferguson!
Although I think bayonets are a bit much, perhaps they are part of the “lot”. Like what you get at a DRMO sale, in that you have to take everything on the pallet, even though you just want the one thing. Just saying.
I was taught to carry two working knives: a pocket knife and a fixed-blade sheath knife. I had a Vietnam era bayonet, and it seems to be a fine knife, and it held a very good edge.
And like someone said above — a weapon of last resort. When the taser runs out of electricity, and the peppper spray runs out of pepper, and the gun runs out of bullets, and you’re in the middle of a screaming horde… batons and bayonets may be what gets you out of the mess. Maybe.
Im going to piss of allot of folks here.
Police are civilians. They are not military or anything close to it. They are there to serve the public trust. Yet more often than not the Public is treated like the enemy.
They do not have a valid use for armored trucks, M16s bayonets or any of the thousands of other things they get.
I will make a possible exception for SWAT teams on some of those items.
We are moving towards a US where the Law enforcement thinks they are military. We all know soldiers are not police, police are not soldiers but when to dress them and arm them as such they begin to think they are.
Soldiers see a group of people and make a determination about that group as a whole.
Police are starting to do the same thing. When they do that Civil rights go out the window. We are seeing that in MO now. If a haven’t broken the law I have no reason to fear the police. But more and more the first words out of an officers mouth are do you have any ID? Not to far removed from “Your Papers Please”.
Yeah, well, around here, the police tell us to ask to see THEIR ID if they stop you for anything, especially if it’s after dark.
If you have to fix bayonets, you are shit out of luck.
You ain’t lying! I remember going thru AIT. One DI told us, they went out with MacArthur! If your fixin bayonets, it’s over.
I trained in Riot Control using a spearhead formation to clear streets with bayonets way back in 1971. At that time bayonets had a shock value, because they never expected the rifles to be used.They really freaked out the “flower power” frontcritters who melted away pretty rapidly, leaving the hardcore istigators without cover.
I always look at the M1A1’s at the local firearms shop.
Would love to have one of them.
M14’s were great for security alerts aboard ship. A bit long but everyone got out of our way. Just don’t hold is sideways going thru a hatch.
Alright, I’m going to say this right now:
It’s a door, not a hatch.
It’s a floor, not a deck.
And it’s a latrine, not a head!
*Ducks*
🙂
I keed,I keed!
Speaking of latrines/heads/bathrooms/johns,etc. I’ve decided instead of John I’ll call mine Jim. That way I’ll feel better when I tell them “Yes,I went to the Jim today and had a workout.
A workout at the “Jim”? Now that’s a phrase we can all get behind. That there is change we can believe in! Oh, and I’m stealing that.
Yes Sir, you can have that one. I authorize it’s usage at your discretion. Be careful over there and stay alert because America needs all the lerts it can get.
Man, this is why I love this site….”lerts” indeed. Absolutely Chuckle-iscious!
Sir, that little saying comes from a CW4 that I used to work with at Ft. Carson during the late 70’s. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor and on his monthly maintenance newsletters he would always sign off with “Remember Pearl Harbor and Stay Alert!! (cause America needs more lerts).
MI state police where also recently pictured all “ghillied ” up, looking very secret squirrel, ready for war, never been outside my cruiser. Of course the pic was deleted from twitter but I’m sure its been seen buy regulars of TAH.
Why on earth would you need to fix a bayonet? Is the handle coming off?
And for that matter, is it really necessary to come up with ‘other words’ to replace normal bodily functions? Can’t we just say shit, and admit to it?
I used to say ‘Peace On You’ at Christmas, but people misunderstood me.
EX……..The saying fix bayonets where it came from I don’t know. However, what it means is attach the bayonet to the end of your rifle. If your fixing bayonets, it means those fellas you are engaged with, are about to overrun you. Not a good situation at all!
Yeah, I was making a joke, sweetpea. 🙂
EX…….kind of thought so, just was not sure, you being a swabbie and all! (Smile)
pssst…maybe “bayonet” is the official name, but they are also fairly decent quality, fairly large bladed knives, available fairly inexpensively…which is not exactly a bad thing to have in a utility box/bag in ANY and ALL emergency-response vehicles.
I’d wager a couple of Benjamins that there will be more practical uses for the ‘bayonets’ in a year (as knives to cut stuff with) than there will be for everything else on that list – other than the utility trucks and helos – combined!