![Sheriff: Obama Made Police Across America 'Less Prepared' By Banning Tracked Armored Vehicles [screen shot Fox News]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-26-at-6.00.42-AM-e1448546497570.jpg "Sheriff: Obama Made Police Across America 'Less Prepared' By Banning Tracked Armored Vehicles [screen shot Fox News]")
The sheriff of Oakland County, Michigan, Mike Bouchard, says the Obama administration’s decision to ban armored tracked vehicles and bayonets for cops is “micromanaging police departments all across America” and “meddling in really something that’s not their affairs.”
Thursday, on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” with host Peter Doocy, Bouchard said, “Our message to the president was, if every day an armored vehicle pulls up at a bank, or a grocery store, to protect money, why is it scary or occupying to have an armored vehicle go to protect people at the very same place that might be getting held up?” (RELATED: Government Seizes Sheriff’s Armored Vehicle At Behest Of Obama [VIDEO])
Bouchard said, “yes, there are agencies less prepared today” to deal with a Paris-style attack — or even rescue someone stranded in the snow or the desert — because police agencies are no longer allowed to have armored tracked vehicles provided by the federal government.
Armored tracked vehicles are not the only tools being banned. Weaponized aircraft and vehicles, .50 caliber firearms and ammo, camouflage and bayonets, are also banned.
“With this administration we hear a lot about gun control, but bayonet control,” wondered Doocy. “What were you using bayonets for?”
“Well, you know, the bayonets that we had to turn back, they’re actually chromed and they’re used for funerals, ceremonial things and parades,” explained Bouchard. “There’s no police department in America that fixes bayonets and charges.”
Bouchard then blasted Obama insisting, “I mean that’s the problem with so much of this, is it’s related to perception and not reality. He doesn’t look at the reality. A tracked vehicle is no more lethal than a non-tracked vehicle, but he doesn’t like the appearance. And for many parts of America, I represent Major County Sheriffs of America, there’s many parts of America that have desert, or have deep, deep snow. A track vehicle is a rescue vehicle — it’s the only way to get there.”
“And it’s important to note, they keep calling these tanks,” explained Bouchard. “There’s no tank in a police department in America. These are big, safe boxes. They protect people.”
“So it is all about appearances,” concluded Doocy. “Since this is all about the feds just taking equipment that some protesters thought looked scary, in your opinion, does this signal that in the way that the feds have refereed this, the protesters won, and the police lost?”
“Oh, without a question,” insisted Bouchard. “Much of what’s being taken away is again just perception. He even banned certain kinds of camouflage because he didn’t think it looked appropriate. You know, when you have a president micromanaging police departments all across America and what they can wear, you’ve got somebody that’s meddling in really something that’s not their affairs.”