“Why do you need a tank?” The insurance agent asked us, and we answered that we want to take over the world with his help! - Two residents of the Archion Ken (Ken) and Gene Neal (Gene Neal) own a real British main battle tank, the Chieftain 1966, of the year. The brothers told The Wall Street Journal journalists that having bought it two years ago, they drove it into the desert and, having deployed the tower, gladly moved someone's rusting abandoned car.Before the expected adoption of a ban on the possession of "assault weapons"The American population is in a hurry to buy semi-automatic rifles: the number of machine guns in the hands of the Americans is almost impossible to calculate: most likely there are even more of them than in the US armed forces. However, some Americans take more seriously the second amendment of the constitution allowing the possession of weapons. In private ownership in The United States has up to a thousand combat tanks - enough to arm an entire army.
The most popular among Americans are tanks from the Second World War, although in the US they are very difficult to buy because of the rarity. Basically, they are acquired by collectors and, oddly enough, investors: if in 1993, the 30-ton Sherman tank cost $ 75 thousand, in 2011, it went up several times, to $ 387 thousand - like a new Lamborghini sports car. In 2011, it was reported that the Soviet second-hand tank T-54 was bought by Hollywood actor Brad Pitt and put it in his garage in Los Angeles. However, they buy tanks and ordinary people who, as a child, dreamed of becoming tankmen.
Keeping a tank in your garage is expensive. Its overhaul will cost $ 100 thousand, and fuel consumption per 100 kilometers may exceed 300 liters.
In the US, any owner of the tank can keep him in combat readiness, if, of course, he can get charges for the gun. If there are no particular legal restrictions in a particular state or city, anyone can buy a federal license to own explosives for $ 200: true, for this the tank owner must confirm that he is not wanted and is not a psychopath. And of course, the driver of the tank must obtain the appropriate rights of class B or A for heavy vehicles. Extending this type of rights also requires regular medical evidence.
However, not everyone can ride with a breeze in a combat vehicle down the street of their town or along a highway: some municipalities prohibit the passage of armored vehicles without blocking the streets because of its dimensions, although most often heavy tracked vehicles are simply forbidden to appear on the roadway so that it does not spoil asphalt pavement.
It is worth noting that, unlike the owners of legal handguns, the owners of armored vehicles bring much less problems to the US authorities. Is that sometimes someone arrives in his light tank M24 "Chaffee" on the empty parking lot of the supermarket and will release all the idle. However, more serious incidents happened to the tanks.
In 1995, a retired soldier and plumber Shawn Nelson, having lost his job and desperate to find money to pay the mortgage, decided to commit suicide. But he did it in the original way: he reached the California National Guard base near San Diego, penetrated its territory without difficulty, got into the M60 tank and drove into the 57-ton car to the street. He began to destroy parked cars and hydrants, while the police could not jump onto the roof of the tank and shoot the madman.
Finally, Marvin Heemeyer is even more famous for turning his Komatsu bulldozer into an improvised tank, hanging armor on it and installing several rifles on it. 4 June 2004, he drove him into the streets of Granby, Colorado and destroyed more than a dozen buildings, and then committed suicide. So he took revenge for the fact that the cement plant ruined his company.
According to foreign media.