You are correct. Beyond the "hobbyists" are of course the the scores of conservatives who fantasize about rising up against the federal government - at least against a progressive federal government - and it is naive to believe that minimally armed law enforcement can protect us from heavily-armed right-wing terrorists.

You are of course right that all are not simply hobbyists. Some have far more nefarious goals in mind. Then of course drug traffickers and other criminals are likewise heavily armed.

on us taking away the judges power to weigh specific facts for individual cases. Now it seems they want to go straight to the execution. Perhaps we need mandatory sentencing for cops that shoot unarmed people. All the conservative grousing about government spending, but they have no problem with runaway police budgets, swat teams, high tech gear that is nothing but a waste. I'd like to see all police budgets cut in half and the saved money spent on our Public schools.

Of Houston this weekend. They backed off but would probably love the opportunity to fire on the residents. Bet there would not be equal return of fire power. Just like the Bundy Militia bunch, they are looking for someone to shoot.

Either the police would show up or they would engage in war themselves. It is crazy.

While there are certainly more guns out there, they aren't of any more firepower than before. AR-15 type "assault" rifles, or rifles and shotguns in general, simply are seldom used in crimes... they aren't easily concealed. And I have never heard of a responding PD encountering mines or RPGs, so vehicles to resist such seem rather pointless. And arming police with fully automatic weapons also is pointless. Those weapons are designed to throw a lot of lead in the air, which is exactly what is NOT needed in public with a high likelyhood of innocent bystanders around. The military equipment is a solution seeking a problem. Its not needed, but once the PDs have it, they look for an opportunity to use it.

Rather my point is that we live in a heavily armed society, and the militarization goes beyond police forces. Many UK cops aren't armed, but then neither are the vast majority of its subjects.

...would be the occassional violent gang or extremist militia. There really isn't a compelling need for local police departments to engage those groups... better it be a State or Federal agency trained for such cases.
The vast majority of armed encounters a local police is going to deal with are one or two criminals armed with handguns, who are more than likely attempting to flee rather than fight it out. In such cases, APCs, automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and the rest of surplus military hardware, is useless.

I have seen a number of private individuals describe their own private stockpiles that would supply a small army in Africa. I've also seen pictures of such collections. They could easily take out a twenty or more cops without bothering to reload, if they know how to use the weapons they stockpile.

... so the number of guns they own isn't very important. And such individuals seldom have encounters with police. Far and away the greatest threat to local police remains a typical street criminal armed with a handgun, or a highly agitated person at a domestic disturbance scene.

The robbers were confined to the immediate vicinity, until SWAT units arrived. The shootout only lasted several minutes... most likely the appropriated semi-automatics arrived after the shootout ended. Despite wearing heavy body-armor, both robbers suffered multiple gunshot wounds from the arms police had on hand.
And of course, this brings up the opposite cases.... where heavily armed over-zealous police shot hundreds of rounds into trucks driven by two elderly female newspaper deliverers, and an early morning surfer, during the manhunt for the rogue cop last year. In neither case did the persons or vehicles match the description of the rogue cop, but PDs had the automatic weapons handy, and used them before their brains.

Normal people don't have that kind of firepower. But any standard hunting rifle would have stopped the robbers. The robbers body armor can't stop a standard hunting round.

Let us know when you when you're going to start posting with a quill pen or
a hand-cranked printing press...

set is they would be the first target of a heavily armed militia....therefore the need for these assets.

That they are trained on using the equipment is quite another story

... whether necessary or not. And when issued those heavier weapons, they abuse the use of them. Whats next? Give the cops the surplus A-10 Warthogs, with 50cal nose cannons loaded with spent uranium bullets? Would they take them? In a heartbeat. Would they then use them inappropriately? In a hearbeat. A community is not a war zone. Arming the police as if it were is just asking for unnecessary civilian deaths, as is being proven.

especially when the weapons and weapon systems are free. However, not all PD departments take advantage of the 1033 program. I know my little town hasn't.

These "gifts" from the military only do one thing......to further remove the PD from reality......they will just overwhelm any issue the come up against. Ferguson is a great example.

If we let citizens stockpile, no wonder the police want to be on equal footing. Though I'm not sure grenade launchers and mine-resistant ambush protected armored vehicles really fit into that picture. But assault weapons probably do.

If we had successful bans on assault weapons, we could get the police to give theirs up, too.

Let's not forget that this kind of military surplus used to end up in places like Hollywood, for war pictures ... which developed its own romantic culture of armaments and blowing-shit-up. It's all of a piece, I guess.

It's the first I'm hearing of it. Many of the cops that I know are NRA members.

don't some cops in other countries not even carry guns many times. especially if they are just doing the usual everyday job .

Or Chicago for that matter? Are they filled with NRA supporting hobbyists? The weapon that kills the most people is still the plain old handgun, not "weapons of war."

all toward the singular end of promoting profits for the gun industry. They ensure that local laws, like those in Chicago, are repealed, and guns flow freely to cities. They ensure illegal gun trafficking operates unfettered by denying ATF reasonable means to track illegal gun sales. They promote the sale of heavy armaments to police forces because it increases the profits of the merchants of death they represent. The gun lobby works assiduously to promote a culture of violence and death over life, entirely for their financial gain.

This continual fiction of invoking Chicago when gun control has been stricken there is yet another way in which the gun forces seek to deceive the public by spreading their patently false propaganda. Concealed carry is now the law throughout Illinois, as the gun proponents triumphantly celebrated a year ago.

The merchants of death stop at nothing , leave no lie untold, to ensure their domestic war profiteering prevails.

Then surely you can show a big spike in police being shot by "weapons of war". For that matter, can you even show an increase in police shootings? Surely that is the logical result of the NRA's nefarious plan.

Show us the trend in police shootings.

Color me unsurprised...

Cops vs. Bundy militias. SPLC has monitored the growth of militias over the past decade or so. Janet Napolitano warned of the rise of RW extremism back in 2009 (and then had to apologize for it).

I'd like to see some data on how often this "climate of armed radicalism" has been used to justify the militarization of regular police units.

but the fact is too many Americans like to play soldier and stockpile huge amounts of weapons to do so. Others are militia groups and some criminal gangs. The end result is an obscene level of arms in America. That is the climate the police operate in. Our police reflect who we are as a society, just as the UK's police forces reflect who they are.

People have had plenty of guns and at least technology parity with police the entire history of the country and based on violence statistics there has never been less of an excuse than today.

You have your views on guns and I mine but the issue here is getting rogue and institutionally racist police forces in hand, not soapbox time for ideological side dishes to make lame excuses for the abuses and overreach of what is supposed to be peace officers.

No so much when it comes to merchants of death, I guess.

We have the highest homicide rate in the developed West. Violent crime rates are down due to demographic factors, but remain in a continual state of war. You actually think the police don't reflect that? Huge levels of arms in a nation lead to violence and make ours the most violent society of its income level. That is a fact. They are aided by the fact that some Americans care about profits of gun manufacturers than the lives of your fellow citizens. Property over human rights and the moneyed individual over the common good---those are the values of a society that promotes the profits of the merchants of death over the lives of its own citizens, particularly the poor.

"Revisionist history" is a phrase used by made by people with no exposure to the discipline of history.

To pretend the police don't reflect the values of American society is absurd. People watching the events of Ferguson are looking into a mirror that reflects what some, like the gun lobby, have worked so hard to promote: a culture of death. It is party of the steady and deadly drift to the right you previously claimed to oppose.

Being against undue corporate influence and corporate capture of government doesn't mean I am against products being sold in the country, I have no idea where that crazy leap in logic comes from.

It is revisionist or at least creative re imagination, when was the time in American history when citizens did not at least have parity in weapons technology with the police? By my count the condition goes back to the founding of the nation at which point the citizen was not only at parity with the police but military as well.

What you are doing is excuse making for excessive force and instead of wanting to rein in the police gunning unarmed people down in the street you are on here justifying it and you ought to be ashamed but no you are fucking rubber stamping situation in order to get on your soapbox about guns and make them an acceptable rationale for the response to steady reduction in violent crimes, it is crazy talk and the excuse making of an authoritarian.

Excuse making that bypasses the obviously toxic influence on the society of the drug war which is the source of the gang problem and the accompanying state of conflict and constant suspicion between citizens and law enforcement and it's justification for police budgets and for ramping up the firepower and sophistication of equipment and now the war on terror crap is another excuse for the same shit.

Stop making excuses, they don't make sense and don't justify for a moment what is happening no matter how passionately you make excuses for a long corrupted police culture put on steroids by the stupid and failed drug war along with absurd court decisions granting way to much discretion with far too little concern for the constitution, the rights of the people, and the law it's self and amoral politicians wanting to look tough on crime.

We don't need your moralizing and excuse making for police violence, we need them reined in and powered down and we need to do it now. If you can't focus on that then you are not just in the way but are allying with racist institutions, their militarization, are propping up the drug war, acting as a friend to the private prison industry, and are functioning as mouthpiece for roided up murdering, right wing militia.

You also conveniently ignore that folks loaded for bear, marching with guns in the street, and yelling about 2nd amendment remedies aren't the ones getting gunned down, the armored vehicles do not roll down their streets, tear gas isn't fired at them when they March around but instead they are blasting unarmed black kids, stopping and frisk in unarmed black kids, and generally treating black people as an occupied enemy.
The police don't give a damn about crackers with an armory and you know it but still use as a way to whitewash the oppression and aggressions.

This weak garbage is just an excuse to side with abusive, counter constitutional authoritarian overreach.

The country marches to the right because that is what the "stakeholders" and the politicians desperately want and what folks like you will allow and make excuses for.

It's okay for a corporate lobby to buy politicians and wield enormous amounts of power as long as they use their profits to generate murder weapons. Gotcha. Corporate power should be put to its proper use in facilitating mass murder. Then it's cool.

You're the one making excuses. To accuse me of justifying any of this is an insult. I have done no such thing. Analysis is not justification. You support a corporate gun lobby that generates huge profits from death and you pretend it has no influence on American society. America is an exceedingly violent country and gun culture is central to that. The violence is reflected in the fact we are constantly at war and that the gun lobby and its minions value stockpiling machinery of death over human life.
You want to pretend the police are entirely separate because you insist on externalizing all social problems and accept responsibility for nothing. That is precisely what enables injustice to prevail. You go on about corporate influence and pretend one of the most influential lobbies should be immune from criticism because you like guns? Give me a fucking break. The real left is socialist. It doesn't promote corporate profits over human lives. That is what the right does, which is why the NRA consistently backs Republicans and why the GOP does their bidding. And you say Hillary Clinton is too far to the right.

Here's your history lesson: Police began as small private forces. In the South they were hired by slaveholders to patrol slaves. You think slaves were armed more heavily than police? Or do they not count in your little NRA version of history because they weren't free? You should really look to actual historians for your understanding of history rather than pro-gun propagandists.

It turns out you aren't pissed off that the police are heavily armed but that you don't have the same military firepower they do. Figures. This incident and those like them are a great boom to the gun interests. They can frighten people to get them to stockpile even more weapons. The NRA loves stuff like this, along with school shootings. Death is big business for them, and they have 32,000 notches on their belt each year to show for it, each corpse the fruits of their labor.

The reason the 2nd amendment crowd isn't getting gunned down is because they are primarily white and entirely aligned with corporate power. Their very purpose is to promote the accumulation of property--property that kills--in order to promote the profits for gun manufacturers. Why would police kill them? They serve the same overlords. Yet gun culture goes far beyond those public demonstrations by toothless Tea Baggers. The NRA works assiduously to guarantee illegal sales of weapons to illegal arms traffickers, narcotraficantes, militia groups, white supremacists, and whoever else can buy huge amounts of guns. That is why they oppose expanded background checks. They want criminals to maintain access. Their actions show just that. The gun lobby promotes all sales of guns, not just to the yahoos who turn up armed at Starbucks.

Hundreds of millions of guns are in private hands in this country and you pretend that is entirely irrelevant. The notion is completely preposterous. Violence begets violence. A culture that exists in a constant state of war both at home and abroad is going to result in horrendous death. But no, your guns are fine. It's the police's guns that aren't. Private citizens ,so called "law abiding" gun owners kill far more people every year than do police.

I'd like to say some of your positions here surprises me, but they don't. You are no more principled on this issue that in your obsession with political elites. Turns out you're just another person invested in the individual over the common good and property over human life--entirely tied into the capitalist ethos. Now I know what you're about, I won't waste a moment's time. Enjoy your guns and the right-wing gun lobby you are determined to protect.

You just made all that shit up and grafted on to me in an effort to wipe the ass of a racist and out of control institution and excuse murderers in order to rail on your pet issue while defending authority.

Fucking pitiful if not so transparently disgusting to ride this boys murder and to whitewash it at the same time. Your focus is clear, it playing political games for YOUR AGENDA not unaccountable rogue police and a corrupt institution, no that you have excuses for.

And it's not essentially any different than the right-wing variety...

"Left authoritarianism" being more accurately merely, "an opinion I disagree with".

However, I do realize your desire for additional, melodramatic coloring to allow your lack of premise a thin patina of validity it otherwise is empty of.

(insert rationalization here... you'll feel like you've scored another rhetorical point if you allow us one more, banal, irrelevant bit of your bumper-sticker wisdom)

My point remains, however: Cops have not armed up because civilians have- they've
armed up because intimidation and overreaction is now part and parcel of current policing
philosophy

This has resulted in things like:

The grotesque and entirely unwarranted reactions of the Ferguson and Saint Louis
County police departments to mostly peaceful demonstrators.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025404429

County will not pay medical bills for toddler hurt in Habersham raid

What happened when the Police came across people who were relatively equally armed? They probably did not all have fully automatic assault rifles, but the police did. They all had bullet proof vests, and some of the Bundy gang had helmets to go with them. The police backed down, because they did not want it to become a test of arms. The cops might lose.

All that crap isn't used as you suggest. It's used against people in the dark hours of night when they conduct a raid to serve a warrant against unarmed or at most lightly armed drug users. It's used on unarmed or lightly armed families, not because they need the firepower, or the armor. They want to look as scary, as "badass" as possible. The principle behind that is some guy busts in wearing all that crap you'll get so scared you'll give up, or you'll hesitate long enough for them to secure you or kill you.

They don't have all that nonsense because the public does. When they raided the Branch Davidians, they got their asses kicked despite all that armor and assault rifles. They were outnumbered, and out gunned despite helmets and vests and all that shit.

The cops much prefer an unfair fight. A dozen cops for one or two bad guys. Even with such odds, they so often resort to shooting the suspect, despite being "trained" to handle the situation and behave professionally.

No, the reason for all that military gear is not because the public has it. When it looked like they might face a fair fight, then you heard the cops saying oh we shouldn't be doing this. Many here equate that to racism, I equate it to fear. The cops were outnumbered, and outgunned.

Taking the military crap from them doesn't make them more vulnerable, it makes them find less violent solutions to the problem. It makes them become what they should be, problem solvers instead of armored and armed avengers. The cops used to talk to suspects, and talk them into surrendering. We don't hear that anymore, now it's go for the gun as the first answer to any problem. Go for the violence, because they are trained to go for violence first. Overwhelming force, because it worked so well in Viet-Nam.

My point is American society more broadly is militarized. We are a society that thinks arming its citizens more important than human life. We conduct one war after another. To pretend the police are entirely separate from American culture is wishful thinking. They reflect America more broadly in its violence, perpetual state of war, contempt for the poor, and its racism.

You're blaming the citizenry for the militarization, when it has already been proven to have been caused by the War on drugs.

Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces -
The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other—an enemy.

ACLU - War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing
https://www.aclu.org/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-policing

A society that exists in a constant state of war, that has high rates of violence, is heavily armed, and is racist. If you want to call that blame, so be it. We all share responsibility for the society we live in. We good take steps toward curbing some of that if we choose to focus on human rights over property and the common good over the individual. People could stop supporting the gun lobby. They could stop voting for tough-on-crime pols. We could insist on citizen advisory councils on police forces and better screening. Hopefully some of that will come out of these events.

While the NRA truly supports the gun industry, they don't support MRAPs and tear gas launchers, AFAIK.

And, while there are more guns in civilian hands than before, statistics don't support a need by police for military weaponry.

I think the whole military industrial complex, about which we were warned by President Eisenhower, has come home to profit.

If there is a cause and effect relationship to be suggested, it might just as well be the other way around:

.....There are "collectors" and holders who might not be collecting if not for the clearly escalating police state we've observed these past few decades.

No?

Your premise seems speculative and unhelpful, because militarization is a problem with police departments.

And we need to speak out about it, not try to place blame on civilians.

The funding and methods were devised for the war on drugs. Police needed to bust into a home quickly to prevent drugs being flushed down toilets. Much of the Urban violence that is associated with handguns and for which the police wear vest, is caused by the war on drugs. Without a black market, there would be no profit, no turf wars.


http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/leso/pages/1033programfaqs.aspx
"In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991, Congress authorized the transfer of excess DOD personal property to federal and state agencies for use in counter-drug activities. Congress later passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997; this act allows all law enforcement agencies to acquire property for bona fide law enforcement purposes that assist in their arrest and apprehension mission. Preference is given to counter-drug and counter-terrorism requests."

As for weapons, a 100 year-old hunting rifle will penetrate any body armor and is far more dangerous than an assault weapon, which normally has a lower powered round.

sounds awfully reductionist to me.

I get people will go to the mat to defend their own guns. The point is we are a violent society that exists in a constant state of war. Too many citizens, including drug traffickers, are heavily armed (which is how the former mange to kill so many people). The violence and weaponry that some insist on defending every day is part of the culture of death that Americans have created. People have decided living with the highest homicide rate in the developed is acceptable and that their property rights over guns trump human life. They actively promote a culture of violence and militarization and then wonder why the police are heavily armed? The police reflect the values of America more broadly: it's concern for property above human dignity and life; it's violence and militarization, and its racism. That is who we are as people and the gun lobby have played a key role in promoting that culture. We, however, have allowed them to triumph and in that we all some responsibility. In Ferguson, we are seeing our culture reflected back on us, and we don't like it. It's time we did something to change it.

If you think doing away with prohibitions on drugs (something I support for some marijuana) will magically end violence, you are sadly mistaken. Take the example of Guatemala. Militarization over decades of Civil War led to a culture of incredibly levels of violence that did not disappear with peace accords. That violence became depoliticized but it nonetheless continues.

Study after study leads back to the war on drugs. You mention a heavily armed population and yet gun ownership is dropping. You mention weaponry, but ignore that weapons capable of defeating any bullet proof vest have been in civilian hands for 120 years.

War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf

62% of all SWAT uses are drug searches.

even a very large role. I think there are many factors. What I don't support are reductionist expiations that imagine the weaponry, violence, and racism of private citizens has no impact on the police. Where do you think the police come from? Mars?

How can you justifying the gun lobby, who works tirelessly to ensure guns flow into the hands of private citizens, militias, criminals, and police alike? I suppose they might not support arms sale that come from companies that aren't their clients, but they milks events like these to stoke paranoia among gun owners who they convince to buy more, more, and even heavier arms. Riots and looting, school shootings--all are opportunities to promote gun sales, and that is their sole purpose. They are the propaganda wing of the merchants of death. The rest of what they spin is empty platitudes to convince the gullible they support their interests.

(I don't know how all those ad links got on my post. I'm trying to remove them. I just downloaded a solitaire program so it must be that).

The police wouldn't have been able to afford this stuff. They'd be armed like they were through the early 90s, when crime rates and shootings were far higher.

That doesn't nullify my point in anyway. I'm speaking of broader cultural influences, which include but are not limited to the gun lobby. I'll concede your point. It doesn't undermine my argument.

I get that you hate that citizens own guns, but that didn't prove your assertion in this thread.

Have read a few articles last few days where police admin referenced the LA bank shootout, among other similar incidents, to justify their current level of armament.

I think you make an excellent point!

Funny how people conveniently forget that cops have had automatic weapons since before prohibition.

And what 'munition' are you referring to? What nation's military uses semi-auto rifles instead of full auto?



This is your hobby-horse, drag it wherever you like.

When history doesn't back you up, go for opinion.

I know, they're not on your side, and they're a weak spot for your side of the argument, but.. let's stick to facts.

They might not think of that but the cops do.

As far as I'm concerned it's over when they get your name.

What are you going to do? Barricade yourself in? How long would that last after they cut the power?

Think about it.

The beer is gonna get warm.

Until then, I think police should be required to wear video recorders, and anyone carrying a gun should too.

I have yet to see a case made where this didn't look exactly like the failed war on drugs. Make them illegal and jail anyone in possession? Yeah...That sure has a record of working.

Police militarized to fight the WAR on drugs.

Gunners should do it voluntarily, but not likely. As long as they have access to more guns, they don't care.

I certainly wouldn't.

From your earlier post, I'm assuming the authorities would have to risk their lives to take your guns if we were to wise up and pass laws similar to those enacted by Australia in 1996. That does not sound harmless to me, or law-abiding.

We do. It's a HUGE difference.

I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU Hoyt. I'm not the type to just obey an unconstitutional law. I'm sure deep down you would agree.

Bunk! The response by police has completely eclipsed the "Threat" factor. you can't justify your Paranoia of the Gun lobby to the treatment of Michael Brown and folks like him and the nearly 5000 Swat raids every year, by out of control police departments. . that's just wishful thinking

armed and dangerous to ourselves and to the world.

We are a reality show and the world is watching.

Thank you for such a simple but clear articulation of the problem.

These weapons are NEEDED now when confronting heavily armed drug operations and white RWNJ terrorists massive arsenals.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/30/2556291/neo-nazi-felon-stockpiling-guns/

White Supremacist Felon Caught With 18 Guns, 45,000 Bullets And A List Of Black & Jewish Leaders

Federal agents were tracking Ohio resident Richard Schmidt’s imports of counterfeit sports jerseys when they stumbled upon his arsenal of 18 guns, more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition, and bulletproof body armor. Besides the arsenal, he had lists of Jewish and black leaders in Detroit, MI. He is also an ex-felon who killed a Hispanic man and wounded two others 24 years ago.
Yet before December, no one even noticed that Schmidt, 47, was amassing weapons illegally, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead, federal investigators zeroed in on his sports memorabilia shop around September 2011, tracking his shipments of knock-off jerseys from China for over a year before they discovered the cache of firearms.
Schmidt plead guilty to federal gun charges and the counterfeit racket last month, and will be sentenced in October. But many connected to the crime are still scratching their heads over how an ex-felon with ties to white supremacist groups was able to get his hands on so many guns.
“I can’t tell you how he got all those guns and ammunition,” U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach told the Plain Dealer. “It’s not that I won’t tell you; it’s that I can’t. This is somebody who should never have had one gun, one bullet. But he had an entire arsenal.”
Schmidt is technically banned from possessing a gun for the rest of his life. In 1989, he pulled a gun on three men during a traffic argument, killing one man and wounding the other two. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served 12 years in prison.

This doesn't constitute heavily armed. I'm not saying the police need all that military hardware, but cases like this give them excuses to amass it.

They are armed because the fear of minorities drum has been beaten by Conservatives since Raygun laid the welfare queen turd.

Follow that with the CIA-induced crack epidemic and the way that was all portrayed in the media.

Follow that with terror terror terror.

It all plays to the base fears of the conservative mindset. Without those fears they would have little to build on.

They are scared shit less. Most should get a real job.

nt

Ever since then police departments have been upgrading their capabilities.
So the idea that the prevalence of war weapons in the pubic forces the police to at least match them.


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Oh, yeah:

K&R

they are frightened. And given some people's opinion of how to handle their lives, they probably are right to be so. However, when they use those arms to intimidate and coerce, they push those who are also armed to resist.

Right now, they're dealing with a group of citizens in Ferguson who aren't so well armed, and can force those people to retreat and do as they wish.

Remember the Bundy situation? The police were not so bold in that situation. And they were probably wise not to be. In Ferguson, they are bold. Perhaps they can get away with it there. But, they know that there are places where they may not be able to, so they have adopted military arms and equipment, because they are just plain scared.

It's not a good situation. Eventually, it will lead to a major disaster.