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John Stossel hosts �Stossel� on the Fox Business Network. He�s the author of �No They Can�t: Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed.�

I want the police to be better armed than the bad guys, but what exactly does that mean today?
Apparently it means the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security equip even the tiniest rural police departments with massive military vehicles, body armor and grenade launchers. The equipment is surplus from the long wars we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To a hammer, everything resembles a nail. SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams were once used only in emergencies such as riots or robberies where hostages were taken. But today there are more than 50,000 �no-knock raids� a y e a r.
It�s not because crime got worse. There is less crime today. Crime peaked around 1990 and is now at a 40-year low. But as politicians keep passing new criminal laws, police find new reasons to deploy their heavy equipment.
Washington Post reporter Radley Balko points out that they�ve used SWAT teams to raid such threatening haunts as truck stops with video poker machines, unlicensed barber shops and a frat house where underage drinking was reported.
In New York City, these men in black raided standup comedian Joe Lipari�s apartment.
�I had bad customer service at the Apple Store,� Lipari told me in an interview for my upcoming TV special �Policing America.� �So I bitched about it on Facebook. I thought I was funny. I quoted �Fight Club,� � the 1999 movie about bored yuppies who attack parts of consumer culture they hate.
�People (on Facebook) were immediately responding that it was obviously from �Fight Club,� � says Lipari. �It was a good time, until 90 minutes later, a SWAT team knocked on my door. Everyone�s got their guns drawn.�
It took only that long for authorities to deem Lipari a threat and authorize a raid by a dozen armed men. Yet, says Lipari, �if they took 90 seconds to Google me, they would have seen I�m teaching a yoga class in an hour, that I had a comedy s h o w. �
Lipari has no police record. If he is a threat, so are you.
SWAT raids are dangerous, and things often go wrong. People may shoot at the police if they mistake the cops for ordinary criminals and pick up guns to defend their homes against invasion. Sometimes cops kill the frightened homeowner who raises a gun.
Because America has so many confusing laws, and also because cops sometimes make mistakes, it�s harder to assume � as conservatives often do � that as long as you behave yourself, you have nothing to fear. The raids should also trouble libertarians who sometimes believe that government can mostly be trusted when it sticks to �legitimate� functions like running police, courts and the military.
Government always grows, and government is force. Force is always dangerous.
It�s healthy for conservatives, libertarians and liberals alike to worry about the militarization of police. Conservatives worry about a repeat of incidents like the raids on religious radicals at Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas. Liberals condemn police brutality like the recent asphyxiation death of a suspect at the hands of police in New York.
This is a rare issue where I agree with left-wing TV host Bill Maher. On his TV show last week, Maher ranted about no-knock raids �breaking up poker games, arresting low-level pot dealers.�
Maher�s right to point out that most SWAT raids are now done to arrest nonviolent drug offenders. �It�s a guy who sells weed,� says Maher. �You don�t need to shoot his dog and crash through his w i n d o w. �
But they do. If cops continue to take a warlike us-versus-them approach to policing the population, they just might bring the left and right together. Government is reckless, whether it is intruding into our lives with byzantine regulations that destroy a fledgling business or with a flash-bang grenade like the one that critically wounded a child in a recent SWAT raid in Janesville, Georgia.
Regardless of our political leanings, we should be wary of big government in all its forms.

didn't we flog this horse a few times already?

LMAO

As usual, Stossel nails it.

There is at least one reason local police agencies are militarized, and it ain't good.

What would happen were local police agencies federalized; that is, placed under direct federal control?

Wonder what and when these military type cops will start the all out control over us normal folk?

I'll bet it won't be long, and you'll have to stand in line, then take your shoes off in the airport.

Oh wow, one of the nation's biggest leftists(Balko) who works for the communist front group CATO Institute doesn't want the police to have grenade launchers, armored vehicles, and the authority to operate how they please. What a news flash.

I stand with anyone who recognizes the threat our police state is to the dream of liberty.

If you have experienced tyranny, and I have both as a citizen and as a former Peace Officer, then you get it. But anyone still grazing with the herd mindlessly going along to get along thinks we are all tin foil hat wearing morons.

John Stossel is spot on.

John Stossel is one of the few media types who gets it and isn't afraid to voice it

Our local little liberal burg of 7,000 just got its first MRAP.

Never know when some 85 year old tourist is going to become unruly and have to be dealt with. Frapping cane wielding buggers..........

Stossel is just a liberal who hates police for what they do.

you can't argue with his logic .

Police have always sought to be armed as well as the military while making sure civilians are limited in what they may own and where they may possess it. Nothing wrong with bringing shock and awe to day to day police activities.

To many Police have been watching RoboCop

Looks like you left out a comma.




Nothing wrong with that. With any luck they will get the new total body armor oversuits(similar in concept to Ironman) the military is researching soon.

Local police have been stealth federalized.



You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.~ Solon

Yep, the John Birch Society has been warning about that trend at least since the 1980s. What they warned against has happened.

Yes. Many organizations and people are, now, being proven correct that have been routinely and blithely dismissed with - 'You're crazy. That can't happen here in America.'