What does the U.S. Army do with surplus weapons? It gives them to local police departments. According to an Associated Press article, $204.3 million of excess military gear was handed over to 11,000 government law-enforcement agencies in all 50 states in the past year.

For instance, the Los Angeles Police Department accepted 42 bayonets. The LAPD, however, says it's going to give them back to the army, because the department has no use for them. Of course, that doesn't explain why they accepted them in the first place.

The LAPD is backpedaling because of a complaint by ACLU attorney John Crew, who complained: "We can imagine no circumstances whatsoever where it would be appropriate for a local police agency to put a bayonet on the end of a rifle." But the LAPD is not known for its attention to propriety, especially when it comes to brutalizing speeding motorists, or eating out of the public trough. A different California law-enforcement agency, however, managed to hog even more of the swill.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Dept. is not giving back its 50 bayonets. They claim the bayonets will be useful for chopping down marijuana plants in the heavily forested redwood country of northwestern California. Of course, that same territory is heavily populated with tree-sitters, environmentalists, and various eco-activists (who've already experienced having their eyes pried open and dowsed with pepper spray)-soon they'll be facing bayonets.

The surplus program originally began in 1990 with a requirement that agencies use the gear only in the war on drugs. That rule was dropped in 1996, when the program was expanded. Now police departments can choose from an arsenal of surplus helicopters, armored vehicles, body armor, assault rifles and night vision gear to combat the ever decreasing number of violent criminals. What's next--surplus land mines? Leftover anthrax virus?

Gosh, I'm feeling safer already! (choke)

--Maria Tomchick