America’s final and most important line of defense in every way is an armed citizenry.
One hundred percent of the people who discount or minimize that don’t just have a problem. They ARE a problem.
@MrEdd I disagree. When someone call 911, who responds, your neighbors or LEO? LEO does. Police ARE America's armed citizenry. So is the military (active & reserves). Who responded to the San Bernardino terrorist attacks? California LEO & FBI. Where were your armed citizens?
The only armed citizenry I've ever seen in the USA in my lifetime (I'm in my early 60’s now) were hate mongers attending Klu Klux Klan rallies in the deep south in the late ‘50’s & early ‘60’s. The Klan has historically NEVER represented the bulk of American citizens (past & present). If those people appear to some to be the ‘good guys’, this country is in worse condition than I realized.
Do I have a problem with Federalizing LEO? As former Army that served in the Nam, I do not. I served this country for many years with no problems or incidents with federal police. State & city LEO have never shot at me nor arrested me either. I get along with both by observing the laws of the land I was born in.
Do police have a right to protect themselves when responding to lawlessness? I believe they do. Should police be held accountable for their own lawlessness? Absolutely. That's why it's important for the crime scene videos to get out to the public to show it the ones breaking the laws were the middle aged, overweight people that turned a public eatery into a bloodbath this past May. The longer the D.A. suppresses that evidence & sits on it while the public waits for speedy trials, the guiltier LEO appear to some people.
BTW, if the scumbags that live in my neck of the woods responded to a 911 call, I'd take my own self out once they arrived. When LEO arrives, citizens will usually survive the encounter if they follow police instructions, refrain from lawlessness & not run away or threaten the responders in any way, shape or form. What's so difficult about that?