Friday, December 18, 2009

Police State

Most of us haven't had the "pleasure" of living in a war zone or even a police state.  In fact police are so obvious by their absence that the sight of 2 or 3 of them together is enough to cause a meeting of  looky-loos. 

So you can imagine my surprise and concern this afternoon when I went out to mail some of our Christmas cards.   At virtually every intersection in a square mile area north of and bordering North Avenue there was a police unit of some kind with red and blue lights flashing.  None of them appeared to be blocking the intersection but virtually all of them were in a position to do so quickly.  I suspect this was a training exercise because there were so many police departments involved.  I saw vehicles from the Sacramento PD, CHP, Los Rios, Sac County Sheriff's, among others.

There were a couple of men preparing for gun battle with helmet and flak jacket.  A couple had rifles  out and at the ready.  But no one seemed to be stopping any traffic  so I'm not sure what the whole point of the exercise was.  What I do know is how creepy it made me feel, how vulnerable.  I think  people who fight for the right to bear arms are deluding themselves if they think that so doing makes things equal.  I'm afraid the establishment has us way overpowered.

And based on what appeared to be a harmless exercise, I don't ever want to be in the middle of the real thing.

4 comments:

  1. My understanding is that this was not a training exercise, but a hunt for a fugitive who had threatend the area of Carmichael Park. Camichael School and Deterdine Schools were placed on lockdown while the search of the neighborhood went on. We live in a troubled neighborhood.

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  2. Such things can and do happen in all sorts of neighborhoods. I think the right-to-bear-arms crowd is planning on just that - the power of the crowd and the fact that there are more civilians than law enforcement. I take some small comfort in the notion that the chance that the crowd will all be on the same page for long enough to use up all their ammunition is small.

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  3. You might be amazed at what some people stockpile. They couldn't handle a tank but they would cause some serious trouble for normal police. Of course the establishment would just use the tank but I am just amazed what people gather for personal protection.

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