Another poorly worded bill by our great politicians. These tools have been used for years to protect the public from the criminal elements created by the liberal policies. How about addressing the real problem...the criminals and antifa.

I guess this is a "step in the right direction," but the high school history student in me recalls the "Posse Comitatus Act" and the notion that the U.S. military is never, ever supposed to be involved in domestic policing.

Making our domestic police more like the military seems to go against the purpose of this bedrock principle.

The real issue here is whether we view the police as guardians or warriors. Who wouldn't want them to be all guardians, whose role is to protect the flock? We could have a collection of British 'bobbies' without guns and all would be right with the world.

I think we all saw what happens when guardians are faced with an ugly incident like Uvalde. The school police officers who were hired to be guardians didn't engage and the results were tragic. We need a balance of guardians and warriors. The warriors needs access to military style equipment and training to counter the threat of suspects who bring those same weapons to mass killing incidents.

Bogan:

you hit the nail on the head.

Menlo2024:

Antifa? Seriously?

In the UK they have achieved a good balance between guardians and warriors. The vast majority of UK police are unarmed but a small, exceptional well trained number of UK police are very well armed and on call 24/7 to respond when force is needed.

From Wikipedia:
"An authorised firearms officer (AFO) is a British police officer who is authorised and trained to carry and use firearms. The designation is significant because most police officers in the United Kingdom do not routinely carry firearms, although they can be equipped with tasers."

"In 2019/20 fiscal year, there were 19,372 police operations throughout England and Wales in which the deployment of firearms was authorised and 6,518 firearms officers, 4.9% of the 132,467 active FTE officers."

Good point, Peter. A country with few guns and mass violence largely caused by knives still has military style weapons deployed in teams of 'warriors'.

"mass violence largely caused by knives"

There is hardly any mass violence in UK.

Stabbing deaths per 100,000 in US is 0.60 vs 0.08 in UK.
Web Link

Gun deaths per 100,000 in US is 10.95 vs 0.24 in UK.
Web Link