Why doesn't our federal government think it important to win hearts and minds of Americans?
FBI agents and U.S. marshals understandably are well fortified, given their frequent run-ins with ruthless bad guys. However — as my old friend and fellow columnist Quin Hillyer notes — armed officers, if not Special Weapons and Tactics crews, populate these federal agencies: the National Park Service; the Postal Inspection Service; the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Labor, and Veterans Affairs; the Bureaus of Land Management and Indian Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Even Small Business Administration and Railroad Retirement Board staffers pack heat!
These “ninja bureaucrats,” as Hillyer calls them, run rampant. They, and often their local-government counterparts, deploy weapons against harmless, frequently innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.
I have never like this trend of militarizing routine law enforcement operations. It is a trend that pre-dates President Obama, so it isn't something that he is uniquely responsible for.
Of course, some SWAT-type units are needed. There are some very dangerous people out there. But most of us are just basic citizens going about our lives. Domestic policing has gotten way out of hand. And this militarization of domestic law enforcement exists in the same world as the demilitarization of warfare into a form of policing. I'm reasonably sure our military consults lawyers more often than our police before carrying out an operation.
At some point, will we have federal, state, and local armed services capable of any mission abroad or at home?
