US police need more funding and more training. Much more training. Even if some of their social service responsibilities are moved to civilian agencies, the pol

US police need more funding and more training. Much more training. Even if some of their social service responsibilities are moved to civilian agencies, the police would still need more funding for training. US Army Rangers which are only responsible for a fraction of what civilian police are responsible for usually deploy 3 months and train 9 months out of a year. When they don't deploy, they train 12 months out of the year. In contrast, even though they have more duties than Army Rangers, US police hardly train at all after they leave their law enforcement academy and yet we demand perfection from them in all of their responsibilities. The use of military surplus material could be restricted to SWAT or other special circumstances. But then the police departments would have to buy expensive purpose-built equipment rather than use cheaper/free milspec equipment. Continuing to underfund the police will force them to cut training, seek low-cost sources of equipment (military surplus), and reduce their ability to investigate crimes.