Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just changing the uniforms would make a lot of difference, maybe there's just a touch of wanna-be in street police. It's kind of like the uniform inflation in the military where berets became quite widespread.
It's hard to get sillier than most small town SWAT teams, though.
OTOH, I don't have any problem with them carrying an 1100 or 870 plus some sort of military pattern carbine in the trunk.
By all means make sure we don't intimidate any of the thug culture or lawless rioters. I've got an even better idea, why don't we disarm the police completely and insist that the police engage in hand to hand combat with lawbreakers? And if that's too intimidating or provocative we can tie one arm behind their backs, that should work.
It's a matter of appropriateness. If you are basically running an occupying army, by all means load up on gear.
But it's just plain silly for small towns and counties to get 'free' MRAPs. You know darn well they'll end up being sold at auction or scrapped in just a couple of years the first time they need a real repair.
I've got no problem with it in places where it's warranted. The police have every right to protections we can provide to give them a better chance of going home to their families. If communities don't like it, they should help remove the weapons from those in their neighborhoods that would shoot police. Police don't want to be decked out in all that gear unnecessarily, but they do want to go home.
The problem is that they didn't use them to lay the smack down in Ferguson and Baltimore.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
