flintknapper wrote:
Most of us here don't think the police "SHOULD need AR's" either. But as the complexion of crimes has changed, so have tactics and weapons for LEO.
"Should" they "need" high powered weaponry? Not in the society we lived in 30 yrs.> ago, but these are not those times (unfortunately).
I would wager...if you asked the average patrolman if he/she is happy about needing increasingly powerful/tactical weaponry...they would say no. Everyone would love to go back to the days where police mostly wrote speeding tickets, cleared the way for parades and funerals, and occasionally ran into a bonified bad guy. Times have changed, and not for the better.
I understand that the police can use a good rifle. but I believe that the big cities always had such a need. During prohibition LEOs had access to fully automatic weapons. When I was growing up in a small town the cops had shotguns in the cars and rifles locked up at the station(m14s and garrands ) I don't know what use the guns at the station were, but they were available. Today the police may want them in some of their patrol vehicles, but the actual deployment of them is still very rare.