Dad was a lawman for 48 years, 20 of those as High Sheriff.
Small town, rural country Sheriff.
One time he got called to a fight at a dive bar out in the middle of nowhere. Drunk inside the bar starts shooting at him with a rifle. Dad never took a shot at him, and within 30 minutes had talked the guy into coming out and giving it up.
Another time, he got called to a domestic. Drunk son and father were fighting it out. There were already 4 deputy's and several State Police on the scene since the son was shooting at them from inside the house, smartly..all were taking cover behind their cars.
Dad arrives and within a few minutes walks up to the door, the whole time talking to the son. The son had a 38 special leveled at Dad's chest the whole time. Dad manages to get face to face with the boy, and during a moment when the boy looked away, Dad grabs the revolver from his hand.
But not before the kid gets a shot off and hits Dad in the chest.
The bullet hits Dad's badge and ricochets into his shoulder. At that point the kid had about 8 officers jump on him, but they never shot him.
Dad has dozens of stories like this, and in 48 years...never shot anyone.
Now you tell me...after 48 years of wearing the badge, don't you think that there were many times when Dad would have been absolutely in the right to cap some a--hole who had it coming?
I can't recall all the times I heard my Dad tell his deputies to keep everything and everybody calm.
And it worked.
Now-a-days, while the police apologist's go on & on about how their training is better than it ever has been, the standard method has become to storm the situation screaming and yelling confusing orders while brandishing hardware with the hammer pulled back and a shaky finger on the trigger.
Wtf? This is considered 'better training'? Swarming in screaming like a bunch of Apache's ramping everything up to eleven on a scale of ten?
How did it come to this? The Police own this crap. They got sold on the citizenry being the enemy and needing to adopt militaristic methods and attitudes.
There are many lawmen who, although get trained in these methods, realize that most of the time it's completely unnecessary and act accordingly.
And God love em for it.
Whats it gonna take to get back to keep everything and everybody calm?
The police and the citizens are just the pawns in this game. The kings and queens in the administrations that insist on using these horrendous methods are the ones who need to be taken to the courthouse square and hung till dead.