The three words “I Can’t Breathe” refer to what some police brutality victims, like George Floyd, Eric Garner and Manuel Ellis, said before their untimely deaths at the hands of law enforcement.
I’m specifically thinking back to January 6th (fuck the assholes who helped the trump supporters)- our country is in a “cold civil war” and the far right are hoarding high powered weapons, a lot of them illegally modified. If they were to attack a large city Hamas style, we would need a lot of combat training to fight back and protect innocent people caught in the crossfire. Also, more combat training means better reaction times for judging if a person means to harm you or not.
At the time of the attack 1.2k Capitol Police were on duty and on site. They were outnumbered 10-to-1 by insurrectionists trying to get in. more or less. More time at the range wasn’t going to stop jan 6. and of the 8k cops that were in the city on the day… they too were outnumbered 10-to-1 by protestors showing up for Trump’s little pep talk. Not when, for example, they put out the wrong style of baricades and those were easily pressed through, or the Nat Guard wasn’t stationed near by just in case. Or the police planning actually braced for the attack that they had been warned about…
the attack was meant to happen and it was planned by people who had been put into place to make sure it happened. That wasn’t a training issue.
It’s actually laughable that you think cops are going to be more than nameless red-shirts against an actual military incursion similar to what Hamas did. cops might pose a somewhat-credible defense if a) they had advanced warning, b) everybody was able to get to the rally point c) civilians were sheltered someplace defensible and d) COPS AREN’T ON THE WRONG SIDE. (when Atlanta PD talks about riots, they mean more like the Floyd riots rather than conservatives getting violent.)
In the event of such a thing… that’s what the National Guard is for. And Grandpa’s Auto-5, and my own SBR. Or did you think Democrats didn’t also have firearms?
all of that is besides the point- the reality is that more combat training doesn’t lead to proper responses. quite the opposite- unless that training is done correctly and in proportion to other non-combat training like deescalation tactics and soft skills. for a poignant example, that lady-cop that supposedly meant to use her taser and drew her pistol instead… she spent far too much time practicing her pistol draw and not enough time practicing her tazer draw. Muscle memory being what it is, she drew her pistol.
