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nightmare69 wrote:Thoughts on NRA's new video on police and military?

I disagree with the argument the video presents to justify the increasing militarization of the police departments. It's using scare tactics to try and sway public opinion, by stating as "fact", that we are in a war against terrorist acts, at the local levels everywhere. That's simply not an accurate portrayal based on statistical evidence. I'm not saying that we do not face any danger from terrorist acts on U.S. soil, but it is not so pervasive and widespread as the spokespeople in this video present it to be, and the local Police Departments are not now, and were never intended to be, the first line of defense against terrorism. The odds of a US citizen being killed or injured by a terrorist attack at this time are miniscule and do not justify the huge proliferation of SWAT/SRT para-military units, at the local level, that has occurred in the last 20 years. This video attempts to address the concerns that many citizens have over these increases, by implying that those who oppose this buildup, and are concerned about the erosion of Constitutional protections, are a "fringe" faction worried that the government is going to use these para-military units to "come take their guns away". As I've stated before, I'm NOT concerned about that, because out in the country where I live, I know the officers personally, and they would refuse to obey any order to do so. Those people who live in other parts of the country, particularly metro areas such as Chicago and New York, have a legitimate reason for some concern. Like Mojo84, I would like to see the actual breakdown of how many times these SWAT/SRT units were actually deployed for high risk robbery and hostage incidents, as they were originally purposed for, vs. serving search and arrest warrants...no-knock or otherwise. THAT is my big concern..the overuse of the special units, in unecessary situations, just because they have all the equipment and toys and they want to use them.