The local community of Ferguson, Missouri, may not look like a war zone, but the Pentagon has helped the police treat it like one.

According to Michelle McCaskill, media relations chief at the Defense Logistics Agency, the Ferguson Police Department is part of a federal program called 1033, in which the Department of Defense distributes hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus military equipment to civilian police forces across the U.S. 

That surplus military equipment doesn't just mean small items like pistols or automatic rifles; towns like Ferguson could become owners of heavy armored vehicles, including the MRAPs used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"In 2013 alone, $449,309,003.71 worth of property was transferred to law enforcement," the agency's website states.

All in all, it's meant armored vehicles rolling down streets in Ferguson and police officers armed with short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles that can accurately hit a target out to 500 meters hovering near the citizens they're meant to protect. 

Unnecessary? Absolutely, says Washington Post reporter and author of Rise of the Warrior Cop Radley Balko, who told NBC's Chris Hayes the following:

The militarization itself is part of a larger trend... That is a willingness or a policy among domestic police in the United States of using more force more often for increasingly, you know, petty offenses.

It is a mentality that sees the people they are supposed to be serving not as citizens with rights but as potential threats. If you look at the racial makeup of Ferguson, Missouri, it is about 67 percent black. 52 of the 55 police officers at the Ferguson police department are white.

The police militarization is unsettling to many in Ferguson, a town that, since the events of Saturday that saw a police officer shoot and kill 18-year-old Michael Brown, has seen massive protests and increased police presence in response, as well as an FAA ban on low-flying aircraft—treatment that undoubtedly transforms aMidwest town of 21,000 into a what looks just like a war zone.

http://www.thewire.c.....ns/376033/

and gun sales are going through the roof

Prompted by the nights of violence following the police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., gun shop owners in the St. Louis area are reporting significantly increased sales. Violence has been limited to the suburb and has been met with a strong law enforcement presence, but shop owners say local residents are afraid of mayhem potentially spreading.

"They're just afraid of whats going on and they're coming in to purchase either additional firearms or their first firearm," Steven King, owner of Metro Shooting in Bridgeton, Mo., told CBS affiliate KMOV. "They're buying AR-15s, home defense shotguns, handguns, personal defense handguns something for conceal carry."

Despite the spike, King says sales at his other shop in Belleville, Mo., have been normal.

Sales of weapons were up as much as 50 percent at Mid-America Arms in St. Louis, including semi-automatic handguns and shotguns. Al Rothweiler, an owner of the shop said more women than normal were purchasing firearms at his store.

"The things that have gone on (locally) have made people act," Rothweiler told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Business had increased for him, "but I don't like selling on fear."

An employee at Bull's Eye, L.L.C. in St. Louis told the Post-Dispatch sales are up "a little bit."

Meanwhile more protests took place in Ferguson Tuesday night and into early Wednesday, but witnesses say none turned violent. However, an officer shot and critically wounded a suspect early Wednesday near Ferguson.

St. Louis County police spokesman Brian Schellman said officers responded to a report of four men wearing ski masks armed with shotguns a block or two east of Ferguson.

An officer confronted a suspect who pulled a handgun on the officer, according to the police spokesman.

"In fear for his life, the officer shot the subject," Schellman continued. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The suspect's handgun was recovered at the scene.

In a separate incident, one person was injured in a drive-by shooting in Ferguson early Wednesday, Schellman said.

http://www.cbsnews.c.....-shooting/