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Most Dangerous Jobs
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
491 points (99.2% liked)
Flippanarchy
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Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
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Ah you think rifles are assault rifles. That explains a lot.
Sounds like 90% of your complaints have nothing to do with militarization, however valid they are.
Even citing your own unverifiable anecdote you failed to explain how your traffic cops have riot gear, so I don't know why you're re-asserting it as fact.
I'm sure they figure they want to be self-reliant and not have to depend on another agency. Is your county agency objectively the same quality or better? If so, as long as the plurality of voting residents of your city don't mind the much higher response times in emergencies, your point here makes sense. Otherwise, it does not.
Again, mostly because American voters have insisted the equipment and training is distributed down the pyramid in the wake of things like Columbine. There's pros and cons, as described above.
Are you conflating MRAPs with tanks?
I understand this and the Rifle vs. Assault Rifle issue can seem pedantic, but if you actually want to address concerns in an objective, solutions-focused manner, you should want to be accurate.
Obviously if you're just venting it doesn't matter, but I like to solve problems rather than (listen to a) vent about them, so you can just save yourself the effort.
I know what an assault rifle is. I used to work in the firearm industry and own over 50 personal guns. The police have select-fire rifles built on the Armalite platform. They're assault rifles. The guns used by our department don't have an M designation because they're not US military spec or military issue. It's like the difference between an M9 and a 92FS.
They have riot shields, tear gas, etc in the cruisers. They carry the heavy body armor and the weapons back and forth because they are sized/kitted out to the officer's size and preferences and they share cruisers between shifts.
I sincerely doubt 25/25 of the LEOs at your city's PD have select-fire rifles, or even 10/10 of the patrol cars or whatever it works out to be with the following:
Are you asserting they're donning these at every call? Otherwise what difference does it make if they have them available in seconds versus 20-minute drive to get the gear and a 20-minute drive back to the scene of a riot? Gas expenditure going towards oil barons or giving nasty people 40 minutes to do their thing before the cops get there rather than 1?
Patrol officers shouldn't all be SWAT. That's a specialist designation that should be reserved for extreme cases.
When everyone is outfitted and trained as a militarized unit, they treat more situations like a military exercise. When someone has a warrant because they forgot to pay a speeding ticket, they shouldn't be breeching doors. When someone threatens to kill themselves, they shouldn't respond with armored vehicles and sniper rifles.
That's what the militarization of beat cops has done. They're trained and equipped in a manner that causes them to take extreme measures that do not serve the needs of the public. Essentially, every police call is now an activation of SWAT, which is overkill 99.99% of the time.
We've actually needed a militarized response zero times in the history of our department, but they devote massive amounts of resources to the ability. Those resources would be better spent on fire prevention, infrastructure maintenance, and municipal projects while relying on our already-existing mutual aid interlocal agreements for heavy police response in the event it's ever needed.
As for timing, right now if there were an emergency, our police would travel to go to a scene, gear up behind the cars, and make plans for a response, then engage. A SWAT team from a nearby agency would gear up and make plans while en route in the back of the van and be ready to engage just as quickly while being better trained for the job.
Oh okay, we're adding the "rifles are assault rifles" issue to the pile of topics you've abandoned too?
It seems like you're conflating SWAT with riot police.
I'd be shocked if you could prove that's happened, let alone it happens often enough that you're asserting it's normal - for your local agency or US law enforcement more broadly.
Likewise for this claim.
I'll skip over the soapboxing because it's predicated on your very unlikely assertion that your local agency is set up the way you claim, let alone that the vast majority of agencies in the US are set up that way.
My county agency has a SWAT team, but they're distributed throughout the county so their response time is around an hour. I think you'll find that's more often to be the case than this Hollywood scenario you're suggesting is both universal and guaranteed.
I'm not making wild supposition about my police department. I'd show the numbers if I weren't one of the 11 people that work for the city that isn't a cop. I work in the same building and park next to their cruisers every day. I attend the meetings where they get their infinite budgets for flahbangs, tear gas, and new cars while I have to figure out how to squeeze enough money from the budget to replace my permit tech's keyboard.
Then maybe you shouldn't rely on your extremely rare and unverifiable situation to make assertions about the entire US.
On an unrelated note, I am paid $5,000,000 per second in a job that totally exists and is extremely common but I can't prove because it would dox me.