Do you think police departments need grenade launchers? Since 2006 through the Pentagon’s 1033 program, police have obtained 205 grenade launchers, 79,288 assault rifles, 422 helicopters, 50 airplanes, 600 tanks, and more than $3.6 million worth of used military gear.

Whats most interesting is that the military gear these police departments are acquiring, such as the grenade launchers and armored vehicles, must be used within one year or else the equipment will be transferred elsewhere.

Giving Grenade Launchers to Campus Police: The Pentagon’s 1033 program, which allows the Defense Department to unload its excess military equipment onto local police forces, has quietly overflowed onto college campuses. According to documents obtained by the website Muckrock, more than 100 campus police forces have received military materials from the Pentagon. Schools that participate in the program range from liberal arts to community colleges to the entire University of Texas system. Emory, Rice, Purdue, and the University of California, Berkeley, are all on the list.

Colleges can also apply for Homeland Security grants, the same ones made available to every municipal police department in the country after 9/11. In 2012, UC Berkeley tried to use the program to purchase an eight-ton armored truck

Reports have shown that over $4 billion worth of military equipment has been transferred from the pentagon to local police departments in recent years, with the 1033 program being just one of many government efforts to supply police with heavy ammunition.

The 1033 program was one of the many aspects of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which has been said to establish conditions comparable to martial law.

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