I've been watching a lot of cop shows recently, and it seems to me the police forces in large cities behave a little too much like MP units. Do you agree?

...sorry meant to have "other" option... just specify in a post

YES! When L.A. SWAT teams have access to a WW2 German MG42 that has the ridiculously fast cycle rate, something is definitely wrong.

Not really. Maybe on a Coast Gaurd-level, but, nothing more.

Not really. Police units up here aren't that bad.

Depends where you are but I guess it shows you the changing times.

Well when you see 2 bank robbers with assault rifles, body armor from head to toe that do not care about living like in north hollywood its not surprising.

I do think that police forces are becomin more and more like a military unit. I do not think this is a bad thing though. They need to be well trained to handle the situations they are put into everyday. A simple traffic stop is not that simple now a days. Police take their life in their hands every time they take the street.

Yes, Law Enforcement, especially special tacitics teams are becoming a bit too big in the "britches" as far as attempting to align themselves with the military.

I don’t believe that police officers should own any firearm unless they can qualify with it, and prove that they are competent. There are a disturbingly amount of LEOs that know little about firearm safety, and what the weapon is capable of doing to a person.

Take this video for instance: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/negligence.mpg . The officer nearly blew this man’s head off because she was violating the following rules in fire arm safety: always keep the finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire, and don’t point the weapon at anything you are not willing to destroy. The most committed infraction of firearm rules by LEOs - be sure of your surroundings and backdrop before you fire – is equally important as former rule. Failure to do this results in killing innocent bystanders.

It is a truth that, by and large, most private gun owners are a lot more familiar with their weapons than LEOs. Why do I say that a person, whose job is to enforce the law, is typically less familiar with firearms than the average gun owner? Well, it’s simple: The average civilian buys more ammunition for their firearms than the average Cop does. Did you know that the majority of LEOs, especially the ones in big cities like L.A. or New York, usually shoot their sidearm (or machinegun) once or twice a year? Fifty million private gun owners go out to the range or country and shoot often, sometimes as much as every week, and the ammunition sales show it.

I don’t even want to get started on the cops that chewed private gun ownership after the "West Hollywood Shootout", when it was civilians who provided the AR-15s that the cops used to save their own ass. Just as bad are those ignorant that think that a semi-auto Mak-90 is really an AK-47 or that an AR-15 is an M-16.

And even then, too many police officers are notoriously bad shots.