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Senator Rand Paul plans to reintroduce legislation to end the disturbing trend of military equipment ending up in the hands of domestic law enforcement departments across the country.

Pauls staff revealed toBuzzfeedthat the Kentucky Senator will re-energise the debate on the matter in 2015 as a priority.

He will focus on ending transfers of military weapons and vehicles under the Defense Departments 1033 program, which has seen billions of dollars worth of excess military gear transferred to police and sheriffs departments in the last two decades.

Pauls legislation will be similar to that introduced earlier this year by retiring Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, and Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia.

Rand Paul has previously slammed the militarization of police forces as stupid and ridiculous, saying that using the threat of terrorism as a justification is a tired excuse.

FEMA gave out 12,000 bayonets last year. Thats just stupid. The Senator urged recently. We are giving out mine-resistant ambush protection vehicles 20-ton vehicles. Dundee, Michigan, a town of 3,000, has a 20-ton mine-resistant ambush protection vehicle. Thats ridiculous, he added.

We have no-knock raids, and a little baby had a concussion grenade thrown in her face at one in the morning without a knock near Atlanta about two months ago, he said. Sometimes its a mistake of police being too aggressive, but sometimes its putting police in an untenable position to enforce laws that really we should not be enforcing with that degree of force.

Its supposed to be for terrorism, but try to explain to me when terrorists are going to attack Dundee, Michigan, or Fargo, North Dakota. Paul added.

As we have previously reported,several local law enforcement agencies have previously stated that they wish to return military gear which they feel was somewhat forced onto them by The Department of Defense. The counties in which the sheriffs offices and police departments are based are being asked to absorb the cost of transporting huge armored vehicles.

The details were revealed in areport by The Washington Times, which found a number of departments complaining about the heavy armored vehicles that have been transferred, finding them to be overkill for the jobs local law enforcement needs to do.

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Rand Paul Plans Bill To End Police Militarization Alex ...