“PolitiFact is America’s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website and the home of the Truth-O-Meter,” their Facebook page proclaims. And just like the rest of the left-leaning mainstream media, Politifact went nuts over the ultimately fatal Charlottesville “rally.” Not surprisingly, PF tackled Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s patently false assertion that the armed militia in attendance were “better equipped” than the State Police. And wimped out . . .

While state officials say police were prepared, PolitiFact cannot independently verify the specific types of equipment officers had access to on Aug. 12, so we won’t put this claim on the Truth-O-Meter. It seems likely that police had access to greater firepower than the militia members but didn’t use that level of force when dealing with public protesters.

Interesting that Politifact interpreted “better equipped” to mean “more firepower.” Just another example of the org twisting words to achieve their desired result.

Anyway, wikipedia.org reports that the Virginia State Police Troopers are issued the SIG Sauer P229 .357 SIG DAK pistol, the Remington Model 870 12-gauge Police Magnum shotgun and a Colt M4 Carbine patrol rifle. What else did they need?

An MRAP? Why there’s one at the top of this post! On the streets of Charlottesville on the day in question. Airplanes? The VSP has four. Helicopters? The VSP has seven. Manpower? The VSP fields seven divisions with 1,932 troopers, all equipped with the aforementioned guns, ballistic vests, communications gear, command structure, training, etc. As you might expect for a police agency with a $300+ million annual budget.

So if we’re talking about “better equipped” in the proper, general sense of the term — as in “better equipped to handle a violent conflict” — there’s no comparison between the armed militia at the Charlottesville demo and the VSP.

If we’re talking individual militia man gun vs. individual VSP officer, what difference does that make? Oh right. I forgot. It’s all about the guns for Politifact and their ilk. Which is why they can’t manage to dismiss an absurd statement from an assiduously anti-gun pol like Terry McAuliffe, even when they can. Or I should say, could. Should? That too.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

38 COMMENTS

  2. You know, they might not be talking about firearms at all… or other mechanical equipment… (cough, cough)

    Imagine Beavis & Butthead on the couch… “Heh, heh. She said ‘better equipped,’ heh, heh.”

    Okay, sorry. Just a thought.

    • Now, see, if they had the P320 then they would have an ultra-secret weapon. When those overpowering militia members told the cops to “drop it!”… well… they’d still have one. more. shot…

    • DAK is without a doubt the worst trigger system ever designed. Be a short, heavy DAO or be DA/SA. Whose harebrained idea was combining the worst qualities of both?

  5. There’s an interesting tid-bit in the linked ‘Reason’ article:

    “The police department of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where Saturday’s rally occurred, obtained 12 M-16 rifles through the 1033 program.”

    The university police have a dozen select-fire weapons.

    That kinda raises an eyebrow, doesn’t it?

  6. The State Police have one other thing — essentially total immunity if they open fire. Who is going to prosecute them? The Attorney General who is in cahoots with the Governor? (unless you happen to have someone like Roy Cooper when Attorney General in NC, running a 4 year traitor’s campaign to become Governor). The Feds? The linked Allen B. West article is troubling. I don’t know if it is true. But early on in the demonstration I heard on the MSM that the VSP had snipers on the roofs. I assume this is for sure true. Thank God that neither side was stupid enough to take a shot at the other; and that there was no backfiring vehicle in the area. One scared or trigger-happy cop and it would have been a massacre on live TV, something I also suspect McCauliffe would have loved. He would have broad brushed all the dead defenders of the statue as “Nazis” (no need to use any qualifiers) and the Antifa dead would have been unfortunate collateral damage, painted as victims of the alt-Right terrorists. Responding to GeoffPR as to why UVA Police had a dozen select fire weapons — the Virginia Tech shooting spree, courtesy of the bankrupt mental health and judicial systems. I suspect that many large universities took advantage of the opportunity to obtain military grade weapons.

    • It is not too soon when the MSM suggested/implied or whatever that somehow it was the Nazzi etc protesters fault.

  9. I glad the “militia” men had guns. They were better prepared than the police. They protected people and no one was shot. As a black gun owner I’m not concerned with them, Its people who destroy private or public property and the police just stand there and do nothing, that worry me.
    Since the Obama administration was supplying police departments in Virginia with military grade weapons, “militarizing” the police. I don’t believe the local police were under armed. They may have chosen to not display these weapons.

    • It seems you keyed in on the same thing I did; not only did the VSP not use that level of force…. but neither did the “militia.” As far as I have heard no one was shot by anyone. Why are panties in a twist over them open carrying if the only critical/lethal violence was with a car? Did the guns, somehow, make the dude drive the car into a crowd?

  10. As near as I can tell, one person was killed by a car, seven were hurt by the same car and nineteen were reported hurt elsewhere in the fighting between the antifa and the so-called white nationalists. Nowhere could I tell how many were actually shot. Or maybe nobody was shot. So in all that violence, either the heavily armed “white nationalists” showed remarkable restraint in not shooting, or they didn’t have weapons. The antifa haven’t yet learned the lesson that refraining from shooting is an aspect of fire control, not a sign of timidity.

  11. I am a highly trained, proficient, NRA member in a competitive Glock circuit team and you all make me sick. Splitting hairs over which side had better weapons and whether Politico got it right or wrong and how the police are down one helicopter … Three people died in that event, dummies. Quit talking about firepower that wasn’t used (a.k.a responsible gun ownership by all involved) and raise your level of humanity to give the proper respect to a young woman non-violently protesting killed, and two police officers working to keep everyone involved safe who died in the line of duty. You may think you’re smart and clever and funny, but you’re sad and morose and pathetic. And you provide just the quotes anti-gun ownership advocates need to paint a picture of the law-abiding, caring, thoughtful and responsible gun owner – as most of us are, those of us who care that people DiED at this rally, which had NOTHING to do with gun rights issues — as a group of low-IQ zealots. Start actually caring about saving human lives and defending yourself lawfully, not being glib about what a website wrote or the senseless death of three people by a white supremacist.

    • William,

      And you provide just the quotes anti-gun ownership advocates need to paint a picture of the law-abiding, caring, thoughtful and responsible gun owner … as a group of low-IQ zealots.

      Gun grabbers have no trouble finding such quotes or even fabricating them whether or not we speak or write.

      Start actually caring about saving human lives and defending yourself lawfully, not being glib about what a website wrote or the senseless death of three people by a white supremacist.

      I will go out on a limb and proclaim that at least 95% of the people who comment on this sight care deeply about saving human lives and defending ourselves lawfully.

      It seems to me that many of the people who comment on this site have a different strategy in mind. Empathizing with others is a good strategy … as is illustrating the factual errors in the statements of gun grabbers and the media.

    • Obvious paid troll is obvious.

      1. We don’t know the full details of the car incident. Given the video, I am inclined to believe a self-defense claim. One of the commie thugs is ON TAPE attacking the car.
      2. When you join a lynch mob that is illegally disrupting a permitted event, you take your life into your own hands. Quite frankly, I don’t care who she was when she wasn’t hanging out with domestic terrorists.
      3. ANTIFA was throwing ACID into people’s faces. I note your lack of concern for the man who was almost blinded by them.
      4. Tell me more about how those “evul white supremacists” managed to bring down a police helicopter.

      If you’re a paid shooter, I expect that to change shortly.

    • One person by a white supremacist. Two people by equipment failure or incompetence.

      Don’t think I’m defending the ideological and legal wrongdoing here. But this whole series of events, despite the fact that it captured the nation’s eye for quite some time, was really something of a non-starter. One homicide? That happens every six hours in any urban center you care to name. White supremacy rearing its head? It happens. The rest of the country abhors it with a passion, so it’s not like it’s a real threat to anyone. And non-affiliated militias showing up? Good on them. They didn’t kill anyone and it seems like they did what they did with the right intentions- protecting others where the police might not. Truth be told, only reason Charlotte was a big deal was because reporters need a sensation now and again, and this was it.

      • A reasonable person would wait for evidence before claiming legal wrongdoing. For my tastes, there are too many unknowns about the car incident to make a judgement call as of yet.

    • “I am a highly trained, proficient, NRA member in a competitive Glock circuit team and you all make me sick.”

      You can always tell that they are not when they start out like this. Troll.

  12. The point of the 2nd is so that the militia IS better armed than state, local, federal, and all other .gov forces. As well they should be. I don’t ever see a need for beat cops to have f’n MRAPs or the like. If there’s that much war zone action going on, call the national guard.

    • If I’m not mistaken, the Virginia National Guard was indeed present in Charlottesville that day.

  13. So what if the militia members were “better armed” than the police? In the unlikely chance they were, It just shows that citizens with these scary looking rifles doesn’t equate to a bloodbath as a direct result.

  14. Seems to me that they did their job. They said the police likely had access to but did not use better equipment, but they didn’t take it too far without having direct evidence to back it up. You are right that they could have said clearly the police had access to lots of equipment that was superior to anything the militia groups had, but the aspect they were clearly focused on was firepower because the larger context for the “equipment” comments related to firearms not vehicles and other items.

  17. These obvious substations of the Democrat Party propaganda department like PF and Snopes make me laugh. They really think we continue to credit their left-wing lies after all that has happened. Currently, they have no more credibility than the many national polling companies (all almost 100% WRONG about last Nov’s election) or the journalistic feather-bedding outfits like ABC, NBC, PBS, NYT, or Washington Post who regularly hire nothing but Democrat coat holders and lickspittles (e.g. Jake Tapper, G. Stephanopoulos, the cheat Donna Brazile, Andrea Mitchell, Cuomo, etc.). They are all just FAKE NEWS.

  18. Typical leftist antifa apologist rhetoric. OMG! If one of the right of center blogs or whatever’s said anything they are equated to Nazi’s but website such as this change the rhetoric to fit their agenda, of course thats acceptable. #joke

  19. Antifa means Anti First Amendment. The leftists want to drown out ALL speech except for leftwing propaganda and agitprop

Comments are closed.