President Barack Obama is moving forward with a ban on police departments receiving a range of “military style” weapons and equipment.

The ban effects weapons like grenade launchers and bayonets and a variety of armored vehicles.

Apparently still kosher are the now commonplace assault rifles that nearly all police departments now equip their officers with.

The White House just made the announcement Monday. But the caveat in the announcement was the key word “some.” Washington will no longer provide police departments with “some military style weapons, equipment, vehicles and gear. But that “some” leaves a lot to be desired when it gives departments a free pass on military style assault weapons.

All of this comes as President Obama heads to Camden, New Jersey this Monday afternoon in a meeting between youth groups and law enforcement officials.

But many critical of police brutality are saying this is all a meaningless show to make it look like the federal government is doing something to stop the onslaught from unchecked, brutal police officers across the nation.

A case in point, the White House initially defended the militarization of police departments, even amidst the abuses that took place in Ferguson. More recently, however, the administration said that military outfitting of departments represented a “substantial risk of misusing or overusing” these items and “undermine trust” in the police by members of the community.

The Associated Press said that the White House announced that “effective immediately, the federal government will no longer fund or provide armored vehicles that run on a tracked system instead of wheels, weaponized aircraft or vehicles, firearms or ammunition of .50-caliber or higher, grenade launchers, bayonets or camouflage uniforms. The federal government also is exploring ways to recall prohibited equipment already distributed.”

Community activists from the police accountability organization Cop Block told us this is simply “too little, too late.”

The president added, however, that he plans to “highlight steps all cities can take to maintain trust between the brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line, and the communities they’re sworn to serve and protect.”

There are other items on the new list of items the White House is preventing for transfer to departments, including “wheeled armored vehicles” such as “Humvees, manned aircraft, drones, specialized firearms, explosives, battering rams and riot batons, helmets and shields.”

But there is still a loophole the White House left, and almost seemed to neglect to mention. You see, starting in October, police will still be able to get this sort of gear. They will just have to get approval from their city council, mayor or some other local governing body in order to initiate the transfer.

Pay close attention to these details when the mainstream media loses their minds praising this move as somehow the solution to police brutality and militarization. From the looks of it, this will change nothing other than the amount of paperwork departments will have to do.

…at least that will be good busy work for all of the officers who have recently been assigned to desk duty, after shooting unarmed citizens.

Law enforcement has no business
being "equipped" with bayonets.

makes sence

the police are suppose to protect us (even though most times they don't but <shrug>)

the military protects the government

so yeah i could see why he wouldn't want to do it
cause the cops standing up if he calls Martial law would get messy

we need more of this ^^ kinda stuff, so we can squelch
any uprisings by 12 year olds brandishing BB guns...

yea, those skateboarding punks will learn to read the signs now...

10 cops vs 10 ex military with combat training and its a no contest.

They are scared of all these guys that came back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

yea, but the big guns makes the cops look cool...

Yea, those that can read.

Yeah they look cool... When they don't have to worry about someone taking aim

From the article, that line right there describes about 99% of the daily activities and promises of politicians.

Oh yeah I forgot to add

I wonder if he masturbates furiously to the idea that he gets to ban weapons and a lot of people would probably thank him for it.

it's meaningless because the cops already have the equipment... are they giving it back?