I think the mentality among the police is "I'm going home tonight, no matter what."
Given the opportunity to wear body armor and carry a rifle when confronting a perceived threat, many will take it.
Given the opportunity to wear body armor and carry a rifle when confronting a perceived threat, many will take it.
Background: it's long been known that law enforcement officers (LEOs) are _safer_ on the job than non-LEOs. Only an unfortunate few die in violent encounters with the criminal elements. When LEOs scream about how dangerous their job is, they're almost always asking for a pay raise.
Nonetheless, there was a time in the not-so-remote past when LEOs _consciously__accepted_ the possibility that they might die or be injured on the job. That attitude is fast disappearing.
Once one accepts the analogy that "battling crime" (where any "enemy" is poorly defined; those are civilians out there) is equivalent to warfare (where the enemy is well-defined and no quarter given), then one can almost unconsciously accept a "better him than me" attitude where the civilians' lives are, relative to LEO's, worthless.
The creeping acceptance of warfare's "better him than me" attitude by LEOs and police departments is the root of the problem.
Like the rest who must escape to reality on a daily basis, I rather have a) My gun with me, and b) A cop by my side.
FWIW I live inside a very large US city, am familiar with firearms and have worked in law enforcement for many years.
And now for something supported by the numbers: have you considered the likelihood that the cop by your side shares his/her bed with someone else?
There is a reason that burglary is dangerous: it invites a confrontation that doesn't have to exist.
I'm not so starry-eyed as to imagine that the cops never need to enter a house forcefully. But they can make this happen at a time and means of their choosing. They can watch to determine how many people are in the house. They can wait for some suspects to leave and detain them individually.
It's easy for me to second-guess from here. But the time to think through all these things is before you go into the house.
My comments speculate upon the mindset of those involved in these raids regarding their choice of weapons and gear. They know they are going into a house, that much is given.
1. Officer wants to return home no matter what. 2. He/she decides to use as much firepower as possible to achieve that - 50 cal guns, military grade armor, armored cards, explosives, grenades, rockets, whatever. 3. I have a risk of getting caught in the situation like this. I live in bad neighborhood, my brother sells weed, I had police encounters in the past, whatever. 4. I want to stay home alive. 5. What should I do to achieve #4 if police decided on the escalation of firepower? Logically I can conclude anything besides having thicker armor and higher caliber weaponry?
If someone declares war on you and not poised to take prisoners and determined to kill, what should you do?
If you do (5), then the police simply bring that shiny new MRAP they got from the DoD and park it in your yard and turn on some spotlights. Then they get on the loudspeaker and have you come out with your hands up. If you fire up your heavy weaponry to oppose them, then you will surely fail to maintain (4).
Remember, this whole thing got started because the police thought they might face armed resistance. If you have a nice paper trail of armor and high caliber weapons leading to your door, then the police will simply bring the proper amount of firepower to assure their success. So, I disagree that escalation of arms gets you anything in the long run regarding this SWAT business.
But they're serving a warrant, and we still have due process (or at least some shred of it), so these SWAT teams are going after suspects.
[1] EDIT: Many more are killed in vehicular accidents.