Military Cops

If you're not a guntard who has to stockpile guns for his penis' sake, the only reason to acquire a non-hunting gun is because you don't feel safe.  Either you don't think the local cops can protect you - because of budget cuts or bigotry - or you're afraid of how a militarized SWAT team that thinks it's in Bagdad will react to a call about a prowler.

Chris Hayes on All In:


It's all part of what Charlie Pierce calls Vigilante Nation

We live now in a vigilante culture. Our police forces are militarized and increasingly prone to rogue operations in which innocent people get killed. (Radley Balko has written an extremely important book about this phenomenon, which shows no signs of slowing down. Why in hell does the Fargo P.D. need a fking tank, anyway? Are the prairie dogs getting bigger these days?) They are being encouraged to employ what can only be called vigilante tactics under the color of official authority. You want to push the definition of the word, and there's a helluva lot to our foreign policy that edges on vigilantism, too. The national legislature has broken down utterly because of the polite vigilantism of a political minority in the Senate -- The debt ceiling was "a hostage worth taking," said Mitch McConnell, and meant it -- and because of the legislative vigilantism of an obdurate House Of Representatives.

On the streets, we are being trained paradoxically to both submit to the authority of the police, and to take the law into our own hands, if necessary, because the police cannot possibly protect us from every danger. Stand Your Ground, though it played no role in the Zimmerman trial per se, is vigilantism hallowed by legislation. That's all it is. This does nothing but produce a national schizophrenia about crime and fear and weaponry that we inevitably act out. If there really were a national background check for mental stability before you could buy a gun, I'm not sure American Society could pass one.

Also this

He can drive around Sanford, Florida until he spots an asshole or a fucking punk and then he can get out of his SUV, his piece tucked into the back of his pants, and he can stalk the asshole or the fucking punk, the one who is in the wrong neighborhood, or who is dressed inappropriately, at least according to George Zimmerman, protector of peace. If the asshole, or the fucking punk, turns around and objects to being stalked -- or, worse, if the asshole, or the fucking punk, decides physically to confront the person stalking him -- then George Zimmerman can whip out the piece from the back of his pants and shoot the asshole, or the fucking punk, dead right there on the spot. This can happen tonight. That is now possible.

 Just a few weeks ago in south-central Kentucky, somebody set a trap on a highway to attract a local do-gooder.  When a Sheriff's Deputy going off duty stopped to clear the brush from the road, the trapper shot him dead.

Every cop in the Commonwealth is on hyper-alert these days.  I drive very carefully.