People who keep questioning why departments purchase and train with SWAT gear need only remember the shootout in California years ago. Nothing quite like having to go borrow a gun stores inventory in the middle of a firefight to be able to have a rifle that was more accurate and powerful enuff to penetrate the body armor that those two morons were outfitted with. It doesn’t mean we are all specops wannabees...maybe we just want to be as well equipped as possible should that situation arise in “our little towns”. Being better equipped and trained brings incidents like that to a close faster, thus hopefully saving lives. My two cents worth.
But that’s the whole point of having a SWAT team in the first place; the “regular” officers should not be issued, nor should they be training, with that kind of gear. If a situation like you describe crops up, the “regular” officers should call in the SWAT group to handle the “tactical” aspects of the situation. “Tactical” gear carries too much emotional baggage, and warps the beat-patrolman mindset too much.
Also, the whole ‘maybe we just want to be as well equipped as possible should that situation arise in “our little towns”’ attitude is just another statist variation of the same justification the NSA is giving for pulling in every scrap of information on everyone, whether they’re a suspect or not.