
NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub - frenchman_in_ny
https://github.com/TheUpshot/Military-Surplus-Gear
======
amcnett
I was surprised to see a number of mine-resistant vehicles associated with
very rural counties in Washington State. Not being completely sure whether a
mine-resistant vehicle was a tank or not, I googled the term and came across
this article:

[http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-
inh...](http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-inherit-
armored-vehicles-233505138.html)

Choice quote from the article:

“Here’s the thing,” Shellmyer says. “Washington, Iowa, has 8,000 people. We
have an MRAP now. We have a SWAT team. We have [police] dogs, and we have a
SWAT team transportation vehicle that’s not armored.

The city councilman began to think: “Goodness, this is overkill.”

~~~
barsonme
I live in Puyallup, Washington and we've received (what I believe to be) an
MRAP. (It looks like one, but I've yet to see it outside of the building so I
haven't gotten a very good look at it.) It's housed in the police/fire station
downtown.

Puyallup is a "city" of just under 40,000. Our crime isn't even too horrible
([http://www.piercecountycrimedata.org/NeighborhoodCrime/index...](http://www.piercecountycrimedata.org/NeighborhoodCrime/index.cfm?fuseaction=CityQuery&SubAction=QueryCityID&ObjectID=16&RequestTimeout=600))

But we have an MRAP. It _might_ be Pierce County's MRAP, housed in our
building, but even then compared to the rest of Washington state, Pierce
County is pretty tame.

Although, we do rank #9 in the U.S. for meth labs. So there's that.
[http://www.kplu.org/post/pierce-county-among-top-10-us-
numbe...](http://www.kplu.org/post/pierce-county-among-top-10-us-number-meth-
sites)

~~~
poulsbohemian
I live in Walla Walla and I don't see our MRAP in the NYT spreadsheet, but
here's the article: [http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/apr/16/walla-walla-
swat-...](http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/apr/16/walla-walla-swat-team-
armors/). Absolute madness.

~~~
wallarachel
Hey, I'm a reporter at the U-B and I was actually talking to the NYT reporter
who got that data yesterday. The NYT's request was granted in May 2014, and we
got our MRAP in April, so he said it's most likely we were just after the
cutoff for the Pentagon's dataset when the request was filled. The mine-
resistant vehicles are separate things, as far as I know, because other MRAPs
were listed as such on the spreadsheet.

------
thewopr
Quick question, is the apache license really the most relevant for a dataset?
Does that license apply?

I ask only because I'm planning on doing something similar.

~~~
nightpool
IANAL, but I'm not actually sure datasets like these CAN be copyrighted.
Copyright rewards "original creative expression", (Feist v. Rural Telephone
Service) not just effort, and I know things like phone books and other
databases aren't protected by copyright. Generally, compilation protection is
limited to things like charts and graphs, were the author has actually shown
_creative_ input into how the data is presented or displayed.

EDIT: But just to be sure, I would recommend something is well understood and
is aimed towards a general usage, such as a Creative Commons license of your
choice
[http://creativecommons.org/choose/](http://creativecommons.org/choose/)

~~~
nroach
The leading case on this is Feist, a telephone book case.
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm](http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm)
As an interesting note, the phone company had been introducing fake listings:
"Four of these were fictitious listings that Rural had inserted into its
directory to detect copying." For copyright, originality is a constitutional
requirement and copyright cannot attach to a bare compilation of known facts.
However, "if the compilation author clothes facts with an original collocation
of words, he or she may be able to claim a copyright in this written
expression."

The court held that "the names, towns, and telephone numbers copied by Feist
were not original to Rural and therefore were not protected by the copyright
in Rural's combined white and yellow pages directory. As a constitutional
matter, copyright protects only those constituent elements of a work that
possess more than a de minimis quantum of creativity."

~~~
thewopr
I wonder where the de minimis line gets drawn. I suppose it's like
pornography, "I know it when I see it" kind of thing.

------
DanielBMarkham
Couple of random observations after looking at the data:

1) Looks like a contest where the winners are folks who are able to pull the
biggest political strings in DC. It has nothing to do with forces needing
anything. This was a free-for-all giveaway. It's all political.

2) In defense of DoD, once you build this crap, it's gotta go somewhere. Maybe
some of these MRAPs could only be used for local parades. Local PDs do not
need this junk, but the rest of the country doesn't need it either. Better
dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot. As long as Joe doesn't start
getting delusions of terrorism.

3) A lot of the local rural counties where I live got M16s. I guess that seems
useful. The M16 is a fine rifle, and if you could get every one of your cops a
proven rifle it sure beats trying to get the poor local governments to pay for
them. The cities are a different story: much better connected and with more
resources (and ambition?) to screw as much out of the system as possible. The
nearest city to me is getting all kinds of idiotic stuff. Do we really need 20
$4k night vision sniper scopes? Perhaps if the city were attacked by
protesting vampires such a purchase would be useful. But I guess guys gotta
play with their toys.

The distribution alone is not worth ranting about. The problem is what happens
once all this junk is distributed. If you own a bear gun, you have a tendency
to go out into the woods hunting bears. You also see evidence of bears where
others do not. That's the real problem.

~~~
ejfox
> Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot.

This is a central assumption the DoD/Government has been making, that is
turning out to be misguided if not flat-out wrong. The police in this country
are not properly trained as to when to deploy this equipment, and when it's
deployed, how to use it.

Just as spreading weapons of war to all parts of the middle east hasn't
exactly lead to peace there, spreading weapons of war all across America will
hardly lead to an orderly society. It seems like if you give men weapons, they
itch to use them, or the power it gives them.

~~~
alxndr
Yeah,

> As long as Joe doesn't start getting delusions of terrorism.

...seems to be the real problem.

------
stormcloud
I can only imagine this is an error, but apparently Brevard County, FL has
received at least 61 helicopters... 8 of them worth $18m a piece.

Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people
could need 61 helicopters, rght?

~~~
guimarin
You don't think they 'actually spend $20k on a hammer, $30k on a toilet seat,
do you'[1]? If this is not an error, I think we just found the best
justification I've seen for making all budgets/purchases etc. in government
publicly available via API, as this and the ones below are amazing finds.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129)

~~~
superuser2
Not to excuse it all, because I'm sure there's plenty of waste and fraud, but
sometimes militaries/governments need things that are more robust than the
seemingly just-as-good civilian alternatives.

Why doesn't Curiosity run on a Dell Inspiron? Why can't the President drive a
used Honda Civic? Why can't the drone programs just retrofit toy helicopters?

(Hint: there are good answers to all of these questions.)

I've always found this West Wing clip interesting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9kH_HOUXM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9kH_HOUXM)

~~~
ithought
As another point, the book Burning Money from the Chairman of Reagan's
Committee on Cost Control, J. Peter Grace:

"The Federal government is Burning Money and it is your money. An actual case.
One day the US Navy decided to buy a hammer, the kind you buy for $7 at the
corner hardware store. To the $7 cost of the hammer, add: $41 to order the
hammer and figure out how to use it. $93 to make sure the hammer worked. $102
for "manufacturing overhead. " $37 to make sure there were spare parts for the
hammer. $3 for packing the hammer for shipment. $90 for the contractor's
general administrative costs. $56 for the finder's fee. $7 for the capital
cost of money. The U.S. Navy ended up buying a $7 hammer for $436, and who
paid for it? You."

[http://www.paperbackswap.com/Burning-Money-Waste-J-Peter-
Gra...](http://www.paperbackswap.com/Burning-Money-Waste-J-Peter-
Grace/book/0025449303/)

------
jaredstenquist
The DOD gives this shit away (to our rural towns and cities) so they can
consider it in use and order more from contractors, which gives more cash to
the lobbyists and contractors. Rinse and repeat. It's very straightforward.

~~~
Game_Ender
On MRAP front the military is getting rid of them for a good reason. They
ordered the initial batch very quickly and ended up several different
platforms [0]. None of them fit the bill perfectly and having several variants
made logistics and vehicle operations difficult. They then did a real
procurement program and ended up purchasing several thousand M-ATVs. The
surplus MRAPs went into this law enforcement give away system [1].

0 -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#MRAP_deployment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#MRAP_deployment)

1 - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#Post-
war_reductions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#Post-war_reductions)

------
wisty
It's lucky crime rates have dropped so low. You wouldn't want this kind of
hardware lying around if there was any chance the wrong king of person could
get their hands on it.

It would make a great movie or game premise though.

~~~
existencebox
It's called saints row. (Although more of a comical than a dystopian twist,
but the latter is certainly hinted at.) One of their primary plotlines is
taking down an overmilitarized police force with their own gear.

------
comrh
Yikes:

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12

~~~
crazypyro
There's 84 total grenade launchers in the data set, if you are curious.
Florida took twice as many as CA (36 to 18) and the rest of the states with
them are under 10. Why Florida needs so many is another question...

Also interestingly, Montgomery got all 9 of AL's grenade launchers, more than
Sacramento or LA took.

edit: actually, this data is wrong because I only used the first page, didn't
even see the other 3....

~~~
giarc
Why does any police force need a grenade launcher? Unless these are used for
tear gas or something.

~~~
ajackfox
The grenade launchers are M79's, and can be used for tear gas and other non-
lethal rounds. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M79_grenade_launcher#Ammunition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M79_grenade_launcher#Ammunition)

Now about the quantity some PD's ordered... that's a different story.

------
ceejayoz
One county on the map has ~16k population and 640 military surplus assault
rifles. If they're equipped with 30 round magazines, they can shoot everyone
in the county without reloading once.

~~~
staunch
No, they couldn't shoot more than a few people before thousands of armed
citizens made them stop.

To help clarify things: the city of LA has 10,000 police officers and
1,000,000+ armed citizens.

~~~
amcnett
Disorganized pseudo-infantry (i.e. pissed off individuals with guns) will
always be inferior to organized paramilitary forces with armor.

~~~
staunch
Not with popular support it's not. For proof that the opposite is actually
true see Vietnam/Iraq/Syria/Gaza/Egypt, etc.

~~~
enraged_camel
No, please stop spreading this ignorant nonsense.

Most countries in the Middle East have mandatory military service. If they get
invaded by a foreign force, they can raise local militias very quickly from
people who not only already own guns, but also have received significant
training in their usage _and_ can get organized quickly due to the time they
spent in military.

In contrast, most Americans don't know how to hold a gun, much less fire one.
And even those who are serious about guns have not actually been part of any
military, or even a militia. Frankly, they would get mowed down by any sort of
organized force in very quick order.

~~~
staunch
How ignorant can you be not to know that there are 21+ million U.S. military
veterans? More (better trained) soldiers than there are males in Iraq.

The claim that Americans don't know how to use guns is in the laughable
category.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country)

~~~
lotsofmangos
There are 11.6 million veterans below the age of 65, which is a fair amount of
trained soldiers, though that doesn't say anything about sides.

Also, merely counting guns per capita tells you very little as some people
have lots of guns. You have ~ 40% of households with a gun and ~ 70% of people
between the ages of 15 and 64.

This translates to ~ 80 million people of military age with access to
firearms, and assuming that most veterans are in the households that have
guns, up to an eighth of them trained to a high standard.

Now this, if it rose up and could be commanded as a single force, would be the
largest military in the world, in terms of forces. However the only
circumstance that I could see that even partially happening would be in
response to an external military invasion.

What is far more likely a scenario if the US becomes unstable is a complicated
civil war started by a state attempting to secede, the federal government
reacting, then more states getting involved. In that case you never get one
big force, just lots of smaller state forces with the military not wanting to
get involved at all, but at most trying to act in a peacekeeping role and
making sure that the big guns stay locked up.

One thing to keep an eye out for, as I have said elsewhere, is that the
military equipment given out is partly going to pro-secessionists in local and
state police forces and it may be worth considering that the police in
Missouri may not be merely incompetent in the way they are currently reacting
to events.

~~~
bcraven
I am from the UK, and the fact that lines like, "You have ~ 40% of households
with a gun and ~ 70% of people between the ages of 15 and 64" are bandied
round so readily is completely terrifying.

~~~
Graham24
the Atlantic Ocean is our friend.

~~~
staunch
Sure is. It conveyed many brave Americans over to fight and die rescuing the
UK from enslavement. They did it with guns.

~~~
lotsofmangos
To be fair, you also helped fund the other side first. -
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworld...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar)

~~~
staunch
Some individual Americans supported Hitler early on. The men that fought and
died never did.

------
partacus
Sorted from most greedy to least, wow, look at Florida:

State Amount FL $252,801,365.49 AL $117,321,970.75 TX $93,960,116.66 CA
$92,199,594.55 TN $88,036,810.05 GA $74,258,127.54 IL $63,856,929.46 SC
$49,446,894.25 MI $43,557,552.29 IN $43,153,872.84 OH $41,066,993.83 KY
$38,672,666.63 PR $37,712,132.94 AZ $37,173,754.35 OK $26,113,459.50 NM
$25,077,905.94 NY $24,920,353.44 VA $24,257,646.82 NJ $24,075,459.47 WA
$23,543,976.61 AR $21,806,380.46 DC $21,741,478.09 LA $20,327,539.50 CO
$17,701,285.74 MO $17,481,149.80 NC $17,296,016.90 DE $12,483,178.35 ME
$12,048,389.87 MA $11,878,711.88 WI $10,122,693.61 WV $8,970,650.95 MT
$8,943,135.43 NH $8,806,115.87 MN $8,580,400.72 CT $7,920,540.33 IA
$7,493,026.26 ID $7,491,468.74 MD $7,049,130.61 OR $6,891,336.22 PA
$5,942,289.17 NV $5,836,317.88 GU $5,466,524.59 NE $5,430,787.55 RI
$4,812,144.16 WY $4,575,149.39 KS $4,009,658.36 ND $3,871,164.59 UT
$2,264,747.07 MS $1,791,294.53 SD $1,771,105.98 VT $1,609,630.11 AK
$706,554.76 HI $521,054.41 VI $228,504.00

~~~
munificent
That's a meaningless comparison unless you account for population differences.
Per capita would be useful to show.

~~~
partacus
Do you really think per capita works in this situation? It's not like your
average citizen can pick up a surplus grenade launcher. Breaking down geo-
politically would be more useful.

But grabbing per capita values from bjterry and going by party...

Senator Avg per Capita

Democrat $4.14 External (VI, PR, ..) $33.19 Independent $9.07 Republican $7.21

------
sr-ix
A contributor just uploaded the data in CSV format as well.

------
dmourati
NPR covered this military surplus program. The most frightening fact was the
typical local law enforcement agencies must agree to "use it or lose it" with
the acceptance of the gear. This sets up a perverse incentive and encourages
local PD to misuse military hardware or forfeit it back to the federal
government.

------
zrail
This is awesome. Not really sure why they chose to release it as an XLSX
document on GitHub, but it'll work!

~~~
shebson
I'd assume it's an XLSX simply because that's the format they received it in
from the Defense Department.

~~~
aed
Looking further at the metadata, the author is "Williams, John A DLA CIV
DISPOSITION SERVICES" and the company is "Defense Logistics Agency"

------
lotsofmangos
How long before state police start pointing these back upward? I mean, in some
areas it is basically handing military gear to secessionists, which does not
seem all that bright. I certainly wouldn't like to be the federal official
charged with the job of asking for any of them back.

------
frisbee14
Imported it into Google docs:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AXPtmdbZ6zJph9Nly6_3...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AXPtmdbZ6zJph9Nly6_3TioVKqvaVi39rRCwemkiE88)

(throwaway account)

------
crazypyro
Might just be the parts I looked at, but some of the data is bad. e.g.
Repeated orders, orders with 0 cost, but then the cost is calculated into
another line, etc.

Also why does the Florida Police (or anyone) need a 800k Mine Resistant
Vehicle??

~~~
cwal37
From the Article[1]: "The Times is now posting the raw data to GitHub here.
With this data, which is being posted as it was received,"

The data they got was bad in general. Their original article[2] also discusses
the lack of information out there.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/upshot/data-on-transfer-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/upshot/data-on-transfer-of-military-
gear-to-police-departments.html?abt=0002&abg=0)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-
polic...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-
departments.html)

~~~
crazypyro
Ah, I didn't really read the articles, just dove straight into a python
interpreter to start checking out the data. I figured it wasn't the Times'
fault, but just a warning.

------
cmsmith
Note that Washington, DC seems to have received 17 military cargo planes
despite not having an airport (also shows up on nytimes.com piece). Is it
possible that this is a mistake?

------
ISL
No matter who was doing the acquiring, the "acquisition costs" of firearms are
impressively low. Who buys a military-grade .45 pistol for $60?

~~~
pmorici
Those are probably not the actual acquisition costs the government paid. The
way the surplussing process works is the people doing the surplussing just
make a random guess at the acquisition value if the exact information isn't
available. For most things that number isn't readily available to the person
filling out the surplus paperwork.

------
notjustanymike
What's an "extreme mitten" ?

~~~
talmand
Mittens intended for extremely cold weather, like San Francisco in the summer.

------
lifeisstillgood
I presume this is an obvious leap, but in Ferguson the BBC reporter just
commented on the tensions between the Black population and "the security
forces".

I used to scoff at the "militarisation of the police" stories on HN. I assume
this is the same mental leap everyone else is having?

------
rrggrr
Disappointed but I guess not surprised to see the small number of helicopters,
armored vehicles and assault rifles provided to southern border states.
Federal government appears happy to distribute heavy weapons anywhere except
where they are needed most as evidenced by actual incidents.

~~~
idlewords
You realize the Mexican War is over?

------
geetee
What in the world do police need parachutes for?

~~~
geetee
Monroe, Kentucky's refrigerator was a steal for only $2,394,800.0

~~~
giarc
Morgue?

------
wcummings
Their Github has some other repos w/ data, and a few w/ code (to process the
data etc)

------
teachingaway
I see 205 of "Launcher, Grenade" followed by only 1 of "Laundry, Cleaner"

~~~
BugBrother
As a European which don't follow the subject of US police, my TV habits are
not crime dramas, I just have to ask:

WTF are police going to do with grenade launchers?! (Do they have 155 mm
artillery too? :-) )

Are those for tear gas? I just don't believe even US gangs are doing Taliban
style insurrections or Intifadas?

(Being Swedish with our really open borders for refugees from the Middle East,
I should just wait a few years and find out why police need heavy weaponry?
:-) :-( )

Edit: Other commenters seem to say (a) These really aren't needed by police,
(b) there are lots of surplus weapons from Iraq/Afghanistan. Why aren't those
extra weapons just sold/donated to countries which need them? Like most
neighbors of Russia, they ought to be starting with big defense investments
right now (except for the complete crazies, see Swedish politicians.)

~~~
learc83
>Are those for tear gas?

Almost definitely. There are a variety of less than lethal projectiles that
can be fired from a 40mm grenade launcher. Everything from tear gas canisters
to rubber projectiles.

Even the most overzealous SWAT team wouldn't use a grenade launcher with real
fragmentation grenades in a populated area. Fragmentation grenades kill by
producing shrapnel, which is just too indiscriminate for police use.

That being said, I do remember a story about a SWAT team attempting to drop a
homemade bomb out of a helicopter, so you can't be 100% sure.

Edit: Found a link to the police helicopter bombing story. The improvised bomb
caused a fire that spread to 50 or 60 other houses.
[http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/us/police-drop-bomb-on-
rad...](http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/us/police-drop-bomb-on-radicals-
home-in-philadelphia.html)

------
orf
AL,CHEROKEE,4930-01-442-9106,"DRUM,HOSE REEL",1,Each,1630.97,2013-06-20

AL,CHEROKEE,5120-00-222-2220,"MALLET,RAWHIDE ",3,Each,50.31,20120518

CA,LOS ANGELES,3530-DS-SEW-ING0,"INDUSTRIAL SEWING MACH, MOBILE
TEXTILE",2,Each,0,2014-02-19

Stop this madness.

~~~
dandelany
Really? The dataset contains a record of tiny towns receiving MRAPs, but for
some reason your biggest concern is LA getting a sewing machine? Why is this a
problem?

~~~
orf
It was sarcastic, I thought that was pretty obvious?

------
bradgessler
In .xlsx format.

~~~
untog
[https://github.com/DataGarage/node-xlsx-
json](https://github.com/DataGarage/node-xlsx-json)

Node module to convert xlsx to JSON.

------
krawczstef
Where's the D3 vis of it? :D or iPython notebook on it? ;)

