Chicago's Military

This is a bit frightening:

After a recent outbreak of gun-related violence, Mayor Richard Daley is now pushed into supporting a plan by new Police Superintendent Jody Weis to arm 13,000 Chicago police officers with assault rifles. Depending on how many weapons are eventually deployed, this may develop into the largest militarization of police patrol officers in United States history. If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S. Marines presently have in Fallujah, Iraq.

Now that is perspective. Not a good one either.

Even the most basic rifle training is going to cost a day’s pay per officer, range staff, targets, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and cleaning costs. Estimate the salary costs conservatively at $160 per officer per day, and you’re looking at salary training costs of over $2 million just for introductory familiarization with the weapons system and another $338,000 in ammunition costs (based upon a bare minimum of 200 rounds per officer at a cost of $130/1000 rounds and 13,000 officers). As ammunition prices continue to go upward, due in part to increased police demand, the cost of rifle ammunition in periodic weapons recertification will continue to rise.

I'd like to know if I can get on that ammo deal. That is incredibly cheap for .223. Cheapest I can find is Wolf at around $300/1000.

But you know the costs aren't relevant since it "FOR THE CHILDREN!" (Make certain you say it with the incipient screech of the liberal activist.)

This is quite troubling considering that this is the same government that doesn't want to allow citizens to legal possess firearms for their own defense. If one was prone to paranoia, this would be a cause for panic.