US government increases armoury and aerial exercises

Whilst America’s leftists and misguided Christians push gun control, they seem to be ignoring what the US government has been doing over the past few weeks.

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is busy buying up ‘assault weapons’ for their own use (emphases mine):

The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians. The solicitation, originally posted on June 7, 2012, comes to light as the Obama administration is calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.

Citing a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP), Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com reports that DHS is asking for the 7,000 “select-fire” firearms because they are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.” The term select-fire means the weapon can be both semi-automatic and automatic. Civilians are prohibited from obtaining these kinds of weapons.

The RFP describes the firearm as “Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) – 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire firearm suitable for personal defense use in close quarters and/or when maximum concealment is required.” Additionally, DHS is asking for 30 round magazines that “have a capacity to hold thirty (30) 5.56x45mm NATO rounds.”

A Gateway Pundit report two days later on January 28, 2013, shows photos of the DHS’s ammunition containers in Florida as well as the new FEMA vehicles which are fit for a war zone:

They’re labeled with the usual backward American flag and the title, ‘Homeland Security’. Below that and the DHS logo, it also reads, ‘Immigration & Customs Enforcement’. Joining those markings, the black vehicles with white lettering also display ‘POLICE/RESCUE’ on one side and ‘Special Response Team’ on the other.

Sounds as if there’s more than civilian gun control in the air …

Meanwhile, speaking of air, over the past year, a handful of American cities have experienced worrying aerial manoeuvres which seem to be joint operations by the military and local police. I’ll look at those in a moment.

First, however, these are not necessarily new, although they were very rare. An article about such exercises in Asheville, North Carolina, reveals one that occurred in Charlotte, NC, in 1997 under the Clinton administration (the first year of his second term in office):

In March of 1997, for example, the Army staged a large-scale nighttime raid in Charlotte that sparked a firestorm of protest and prompted Mayor Pat McCrory to cancel two additional days of scheduled training.

“We were misled,” McCrory told The Washington Post after the hubbub. “How they thought you could come in and out without any disturbance is beyond me. It was almost like a blitzkrieg operation. People went and got their guns. I feel fortunate no one was hurt.” McCrory also sounded off about the matter in a letter to President Bill Clinton: “I am deeply disappointed in the way the Department of Defense handled this exercise,” the mayor wrote. “Had we known the scope of the operation, we would have never allowed it to take place. … Rest assured, we learned a valuable lesson and will be on our guard should we receive any other requests to stage training exercises in this city.”

Under George ‘W’ Bush’s administration, the Asheville exercises took place in 2004:

Some Asheville residents felt they were living in a war zone one recent evening, as explosions and gunfire echoed through downtown for several hours. Beginning around 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 19, three military helicopters — a hulking Black Hawk and two smaller MH-6 Little Birds — circled the city, touching down atop the Buncombe County Courthouse to drop off commandos. With little to no warning of the populace, Asheville had hosted a military training exercise …

Walt Sokalski, a spokesman for the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, told Xpress, “The reason we do not normally put things in the newspaper is because, when we do that, we end up having a large crowd [of spectators] and that impacts the local police department, because they then have to worry about crowd control.”

Server Christina Boykin was on duty that night at the Grape Escape, and she had a full section of customers on the restaurant’s patio as the exercise played out directly across City/County Plaza. Shortly before the training began, says Boykin, two city police officers stopped by to warn her boss that there were going to be some maneuvers taking place nearby. But she says it wasn’t a fair warning for the “heart-palpitating, solar-plexus-resonating deep noises of war and fear” that followed ...

Contrary to some local media reports, the exercise was primarily a U.S. Army operation with some participation by local law enforcement. “We were conducting what we call urban training exercises,” Sokalski explained. He wouldn’t say which Army units were involved, other than that they included “different elements of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.” Among the “elements” based at Fort Bragg are the Special Forces and the super-secret Delta Force.

“We got some great training in Asheville,” said Sokalski …

Now to 2012. Aerial military exercises took place in Los Angeles at the end of January that year:

This year, the first manoeuvres took place on Thursday, January 24, in Miami. CBS Miami reports:

CBS4 captured video of Black Hawk helicopters flying over the city as part of a joint military training exercise.

Thursday night’s training took place near the Stephen P. Clark Center in Miami and a nearby Metrorail station where troops could be seen rappelling from the military choppers onto the Metrorail station platform.

A similar operation took place in April 2011 in Miami’s Brickell area, which frightened many residents in the area.

A few days before, The Miami Herald issued a notification to local residents:

… “This is routine training conducted by military personnel designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirement,” the police statement said.

This isn’t the first time such training has been done in Miami. In April 2011, military helicopters buzzed through Brickell, leading to sleepless nights for some people and a lot of griping on social media about it.

This video shows you what happened in January 2013. Note the machine gun fire from the Black Hawks:

It used to be the case that military bases were adequate for such exercises.

On January 28, a few days after the Miami exercises, Houston residents experienced theirs:

We received a lot of phones calls, Tweets and Facebook posts from worried neighbors, wondering what was going on.

SkyEye 13 HD was over the south side where at first look, it appeared there was a massive SWAT scene happening.

With military helicopters flying above her southeast Houston neighborhood, Frances Jerrals didn’t know what to think.

“When you see this, you think the worst. When you hear this, you think the worst,” Jerrals said.

And so, she passed along her concern.

“She told me ‘don’t come home it sounds like we’re in a war zone. Guns, shooting, helicopters flying around the house,'” Isaac Robertson Jr. said.

The Blaze also carried photos and a local ABC video of the exercise.

Perhaps the intent of these manoeuvres is twofold: to accustom police and the military to view civilians as the enemy and to get residents used to the noises and commotion of a war zone.

One way or another, it’s a battle — for the mind.