Boston FBI Chief Pushes Assault Rifles For Police

An FBI official says Boston police officers should be armed with assault rifles to make the city more prepared for a terrorist attack.

Warren Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, said Tuesday he is baffled by opposition to a proposal to give some neighborhood police officers the semiautomatic weapons.

In May, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino criticized a proposal to arm up to 200 officers with M-16s that the police department had ordered from the U.S. military. Menino said only specially trained units should have the guns.

Bamford said he believes more officers should have access to the guns in the event Boston becomes the target of a terrorist attack like the one that killed 166 people in Mumbai, India in November.