Under no circumstance should cops KILL

[The Grand Nudger]

August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman kills his wife and mother and then takes a box of long guns to the top of the clock tower at University of Texas in Austin. He kills 16 more people before a cop with a gun ends his spree. He wounded a lot of people and shot people trying to rescue them from under his eagle eye. The police had to borrow armored cars from Wells Fargo to retrieve the injured students. 

Having an armored car handy would have saved some of the wounded. 

Armor wins again.  

The US government could sell the obsolete APCs to some tin-pot dictator to help him keep the population under control, or they could donate them to cities so they could be used to save lives. After seeing armored cars at every major intersection in Lima, Peru, way back when I do have an opinion on that. 

Oh, for sure, if the cops could avoid living out their gi joe fantasies with the gifted guns and vehicles it wouldn't be a big deal.

And let's talk "tactical gear", aka "I'm going home tonight" cop clothes. First, you may hear about cops "gearing up" when there's a hostage situation. They have to gear  up because they don't wear that stuff all the time. My neighbor has had his in the truck for years and gets it out each year for inventory, then puts it away again. 

IKR, heavy as shit. 140 in the sun, lol. Most of the time they don;t need that anymore than they need their pistols.

"militarization" is a buzz word that very few people understand but many fling about.

...good thing none of those idiots are here, just us intelligent people who all understand that police militarization is a thing, both now and historically..and that it's a thing for us now particularly isn't surprising given nearly two decades of war. Is it effecting the way that police interact with citizens, or the way that citizens view the police. Yes, double-yes, and that's no good.

Maybe they could paint their kevlar pink? Powder blue is also calming.

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There is a war on drugs.  There is a war on terror.  The police have been conditioned to see their opposition in terms of an "us vs them" mentality and this is reciprocated by the public (or vv, or vv v..endlessly) and while that is almost certainly true in an immediate sense it doesn't actually protect police officers from harm and all too often ends up with shot people.  

They are wearing combat fatigues.  They are carrying AR's an fn m249s..as if the people around them are a platoon of infantry about to assualty their little blue bunker - which has mechanized armor support.......  Can we agree that this may be a tad bit much?  Are we waiting until they put a vulcan on a traffic helicopter or something? That's not going to happen. That's what drones are for.

(I'm just jealous when it comes to the 249, I can admit it).

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Sidebar, if the guns and taking down potential stabbers are a good reason for the guns..aren't they an even better reason for armed drones? No need to risk a cops life, and we still get to point a gun at the bad guy.