While police acting as goon squads for private interests is problematic, there is another larger problem here. Police departments everywhere are becoming more a

While police acting as goon squads for private interests is problematic, there is another larger problem here. Police departments everywhere are becoming more and more paramilitary. In the United States, the Federal Government actually gives surplus military gear to local law enforcement. SWAT teams are prestigious to have and every municipality's police force wants one. Many universities even have SWAT teams now, using the Virginia Tech shootings as a rationale for why they are necessary. The problem is that SWAT teams are so rarely needed. Spending all that money on training for something that is rarely used is hard to justify. All that cool gear can't go unused. Plus, police officers on these teams tend to want to play special forces soldier. We get mission creep. It starts with drug warrants. Officers, "based on training, knowledge and experience," state that "drug dealers tend to be armed." And anyone involved with drugs is a dealer for the purposes of drug warrants. So, using the surprising and overwhelming force of a SWAT team is necessary for "officer safety." Eventually, SWAT teams graduate to serving nearly all warrants. Some SWAT trainers recommend this for practice. If you follow the news on this issue, wrong-door SWAT raids are a daily occurrence. Innocent people are terrorized. Innocent people die because of poor trigger discipline or mistakes in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, police are confused for home invaders and they are killed in self-defence. And the shooter is then facing capital murder charges. SWAT raids create volatile situations. Unfortunately, the alternatives aren't as glamorous.