After a wave of police assassinations in the 1970s, the feds strongly encouraged police in the US to no longer use “Old West” style policing, in which guns remained holstered, and would only be brandished if the intent was to shoot to kill.
Instead, they were told to adopt “SWAT” tactics, which quickly turned into paramilitary tactics, assumed everyone was out to kill police, and that they should “brandish and menace” their guns frequently, “to establish control and dominance in situations.”
This resulted in a marked increase in police deaths, as brandishing a gun can not only make a normal situation bad, but makes it far easier to lose your gun. Far more police deaths were from their own gun, apart from suicide, in the hands of someone else.
And practically speaking, guns only have three modes: holstered, brandished, or firing, which is wholly inadequate for the vast majority of police encounters; which is why many police now adore Tasers, as they give them many more options that guns don’t.
Its long term result was just as bad, based on the RICO Act which was passed *prior* to the assassinations, which poured federal money from confiscated (”arrested”) property and money into local police coffers, on *condition* that they used the money to buy military surplus equipment and weapons.
Over time, this result in ridiculous and utterly unnecessary paramilitarization of local police.
In any event, this is why we need to keep a close watch of these current police assassinations, because the same scoundrels who turned our police into paramilitaries will undoubtedly start beating the drum for even more weaponizing and aggression on the part of police.
Something that neither the police, or our nation, need.
Spot on. Thanks for the reinforcing what some of us have been saying for many years.
Be safe!