Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Georgia's Favorite Military Surplus

The NYTimes did an excellent piece and map of all the counties in the U.S. that received military hardware for law enforcement. Now the raw data is available and I thought, for fun, I'd see what's the most popular military hardware in Georgia where I live. The top 10 below (raw number distributed in parentheses):
  1. 5.56 millimeter rifle: (2,797)
  2. .62 millimeter rifle: (1,096)
  3. .45 caliber pistol: (502)
  4. sight, reflex (367)
  5. truck, utility (346)
  6. shotgun, 12 gauge, riot type (190)
  7. illuminator, infrared (147)
  8. night vision sight (114)
  9. boots, combat (84)
  10. night vision googles (65)
Don't you feel safer now? Other fun factoids. Thirty-nine refrigerators were distributed (military fridges?), 16 microwaves, and 12 pressure washers. Meaning that's business lost to Lowe's and Home Depot. Other fun items: lubricating oil, "chute, ejection," a gimbal, a chock, "chalk, marking," an electric guitar (Meriwether County) and possibly my favorite -- one leg iron that went to Bibb County. A leg iron? Really?

And the most frightening of all? Twenty-one "No name provided" were distributed. Could be anything. Phasers, maybe.

Fulton County received the most items (1,599), no big surprise given how big it is. The next ones, though, are surprising -- Carroll County (1,277), Lee County (817), Walton County (665), and Meriwether County (664). See graphic below.




There's tons more I could have fun with, even invent cool graphics or perhaps a map, but that'd take too much time. If you're deeply interested, I can carve out the Georgia data into an Excel file and send it your way. Just Georgia alone is not all that big.

BONUS

I'm adding local counties and what they received, which isn't all that much.
  • Clarke - 2 rifles
  • Jackson - 22 rifles, 8 pistols. Sheesh
  • Oconee - 2 rifles
  • Oglethorpe -- zilch, nada


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