local police are equipped with more gear, machinery, and firearms than ever before. Under a federal program providing military surplus to local law enforcement, small town police officers now have armed vehicles, M-16s, and grenade launchers.
The equipment is intended to help police deal with terrorism and other serious threats. However, critics argue that law enforcement is beginning to look a lot like a standing army, which the founder fathers expressly sought to prevent.
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, James Madison, a proponent of a strong, centralized government, spoke out against maintaining a permanent army. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” he argued. “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home…”
Samuel Adams agreed, writing several years earlier that a professional army was, “always dangerous to the Liberties of the People.” He added, “Soldiers were likely to consider themselves separate from the populace, to become more attached to their officers than their government, and to be conditioned to obey commands unthinkingly.”
h/t Guest