Of course taxpayers paid for this. But if I were a sheriff’s department and I had heavily armed narcotraficantes coming across the border into my county, I would want one of these, too. They would have been foolish to turn it down. In fact, I can’t think of a safer way to drive on the Beltway, but DHS isn’t offering to buy me one. Dang.
Well to get around the Posse Comitatus Act, just turn the police into quazi military organizations. Tie enough of their funding to federal grants and they become more beholden to the feds than there local governments.
So yes it does sound wonderful to fully equip the local police like this... But a government strong enough to right all wrongs is a government strong enough to enact laws contrary to the will of the governed and to break the contract between the governing and the governed by force.