The former's probably more a function of "we spent all this money on stuff and training and we'd better get some use out of it" than anything else.  I attribute the latter to as much the desire of guys who join the police to get in some legalized butt-kicking as anything else, and the fascination with high-powered weapons most guys outgrow by either their mid-to-late 20s or the first time they see the damage one can do.  It's that whole butt-kicking mindset gone wild, in a time o' terra', that gives us today's story.

Seems someone's dad wanted a video of the middle school kids playing football.  Or, maybe he was planning to make game films, so the kids could study them and win over the other 7th graders on their way to the coveted college scholarships.

That's pretty much the only way to finance college for a lot of folks these days, given the paucity of financial aid.  But, anyway.

Dad, wanting a better view, goes up on the roof to film.  Wanting to rest his butt, or maybe a steadier rest for the camera, he brings along a lawn chair.

In time of terra', all explanations default to "terrists".  Someone saw Dad, decided he had to be a sniper, and spread the alarm.  Hundreds stampede off the field, SWAT comes and Dad, ultimately, does not get the video of son.

But he did get kicked out and a trespassing ticket, too.  And the fearmongers won another game.  It makes me laugh, but it makes me a little sick at heart, too.

Y'know, people, every last fear every one of us has can, with a little work, be recognized as being rooted in that central fear of dying.  Strip away the surface dross, and it comes down to fear of dying.  Take a minute and think about it and you'll only be able to agree with that.  

What fearmongers use and the fearful forget is that every one of us one day will shuffle off this mortal coil (that's spelled "d-i-e").  The fearmongers try to convince us, in one way or another, that if we are afraid, very afraid, they and the solutions they propose to resolve the fear (which never work anyway) will somehow protect us from that which we fear.  Or, in so many words, they sell us the pipe dream of, what - no dying - if we just sacrifice whatever it is they want us to give up.  

In short - you're going to die one day, and you can do anything you want, including being fearful, but that isn't going to change.  

You laugh.  But it's just that simple.  One can either cower in fear, or not.  One can accept the fear the fearmongers sell us, or not.  (BTW, if you do accept it, you'll never run out of things to be afraid of.) The End will get here for both the fearful and those who are not.

And ultimately it resolves to how one wants to live their life:  cowering in fear and hoping that by cowering the rules won't apply to them, or living confidently, now, and recognizing life is a whole lot better when they ignore the fearmongers.  

And send the SWAT team home so we can enjoy watching kids play football.