>but the vast majority of Americans will never be subject to a SWAT raid or anything like it (especially if they're not involved in illegal activity). Or terror

>but the vast majority of Americans will never be subject to a SWAT raid or anything like it (especially if they're not involved in illegal activity). Or terrorist attacks. Or mass shootings. Or etc etc. While that's true, it's somewhat beside the point. US citizens are far more likely to be a on the receiving end of a SWAT raid or a victim of murder than citizens of other countries at a comparable level of development. The fact that it's only a minority of the population doesn't mean there isn't a serious issue. To put some numbers on it, the US annual murder rate is ~5 people per 100k population. Yes, it's small, but compare that to 1.0 in the UK, 1.1 in Australia, 1.6 in Canada (0.4 in my country), and clearly it's a more dangerous place. There are estimated to be ~50-80k US SWAT raids per year annually. Of those in Maryland for example: - half are for non-violent "part-II" crimes - a third resulted in no arrests - >1% resulted in an officer's weapon being fired I didn't know those SWAT stats prior to today and I find them shocking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/shedding-light-on-the-use-of-swat-teams/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/s...