Laws Complicate Trump's Threat of Sending Troops to Minneapolis

[left-of-center2012]

Under normal circumstances, an American president can’t simply send in the military to enforce the law in a city or state, as President Donald Trump threatened following this week’s unrest in Minneapolis. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Just highly unlikely, experts say.

Federal law generally bars the military from enforcing laws at home, leaving policing to state and local authorities. That ban on using the military to enforce civilian laws includes the National Guard, the service Trump mentioned in a series of angry tweets late Thursday. The separation of duties stretches back to the Posse Comitatus Act, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The laws, however, do contain exceptions. The most politically fraught involve quelling an insurrection on U.S. soil. But the protests and looting that erupted this week after Floyd’s death aren’t an insurrection, said Dwight Stirling, chief executive officer of the Center for Law and Military Policy think tank.

“The definition of ‘insurrection’ is when people try to overthrow their government. That’s when there are mobs of people with firearms marching on the state capital -- that’s insurrection,” said Stirling, who’s also an attorney with the California National Guard. “What’s happening here is civil unrest, protests.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-29/laws-complicate-trump-s-threat-of-sending-troops-to-minneapolis?srnd=politics-vp

[MineralMan]

1. Trump Does Not Care about Laws.

I encourage Governor Walz in Minnesota and Governors of other states to resist the urge to request military support. They can use the National Guard in their own states, but should not allow Trump to send regular military troops to their states. That would be a major error in judgment, I believe.

[uponit7771]

2. Trump doesn't do the whole Law thing

[jmg257]

3. Doesn't seem all that hard...332. Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority

§332. Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

[captain queeg]

4. Does this "uniform" make me look military?

Or just a fat ass clown? Asks general tiny hands-bone spurs

[SamKnause]

5. Have you been asleep since Trump was elected ???

He does not follow the law.

He doesn't believe in the law.

He thinks as long as he is president, he is the law.

The Senate agrees with him.

The Attorney General agrees with him.

The courts he has packed with unqualified judges agree with him.

Have any of them lifted a finger to stop this evil fucker ??? No.

The house is the only body of government that has tried to stop him.

They can't.

As long as he is president and controls the Senate, The Attorney General, and the judges

he will continue to do as he pleases.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

6. Federal troops have been used to put down riots before.

The Insurrection Act was invoked by Bush on the 2nd or 3rd day of the LA Riots and the Army and Marines were sent in. The Insurrection Act was also invoked during the 1967 Detroit Riots.