[JimDandy]

Fun fact; our military is planning on putting retired A-10 Warthogs complete with GAU-8's still mounted out for surplus.

And you think local police forces are going to just pick one up at the auction?

which escalated to trumped up charges

The violations of the NFA were trumped up? They didn't actually have the grenades and full auto weapons they were charged and convicted for at Waco?

Because a lightly-armored Crown Vic (or whatever) can't be used to destroy a building, that's why.

I'll bite. How can a lightly armored HMMWV destroy a building that a lightly armored crown-vic can't?

and LAW rockets for armored vehicles (which have existed since forever, btw)

Which interacts with them not already having them how? As you point out, armored vehicles have existed for quite some time, yet we don't see that many LAWS rockets on patrol yet, do we?

It's foolish to pretend our choice of kit has no bearing on our mindset.

Really? I have an AR-15. I plink away with it. Long term goals include a longer barrelled upper for precision shooting. My mindset in no way includes the idea I should run around in tactical gear patrolling rooftops in the mean streets of BFE ready to snipe at muggers and rapists, like some comic book hero. I've got a 1911, thigh rig, and mag pouch for my other thigh. I have a whimsical half-formed plan to get a shotgun for three-gun. This doesn't mean my mindset involves pulling on some Camo, and all that gear, plus getting a surplus plate carrier, and PASGT if I ever hear a noise in the kitchen at night. Probably good news for one of the guys I live with as he's a midnight snacker.

the police are less so, so we get to see their motivations more plainly.

I'm confused. You start out strongly agreeing with the idea that police, as civilians, should be treated exactly as we are. Then you yourself separate them out and treat them differently giving them far less of a benefit of the doubt.

I noticed the Mods were pruning references to Nazis; can we do the same for the even more ridiculous references to Call of Duty/Red Dawn as well as Mayberry?

There was a CoD/Red Dawn reference? I missed it and can't comment on that, however the Mayberry reference I did see, and didn't take it so much as a direct reference to fictional Mayberry as a euphemistic reference to generic pre "militarization" law enforcement, and a decidedly stretchy idea of how an unarmed peace officer would respond to a spree shooting that was all but unheard of at the time. There are certainly other State Police apparatus you could reference for equal effect. The Stasi for example.

The sniper role is where the modern wave of militarization all started (LA shootout). Which is funny since snipers are a fairly recent military tactic, having originally come from civilian hunters (neither military nor law enforcement). The sniper is a very odd unit as far as military tactics because of this basic difference, as well.

I'm not sure you can call the current wave of militarization "modern" while also calling snipers "fairly recent" as sniping is at least as old as the Crimean if not the Revolutionary War.