This May Not Mean War...

...but it does wink suggestively while twitching its head that way.

I'm sure many of you have already seen the news that a DHS target supplier now sells "Non-traditional Threat" targets. Disturbingly named the "No More Hesitation" series, these targets depict various Americans, including CHILDREN, wielding guns, with the basic instruction "Shoot this".

This is disturbing on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. I suppose the title is as good a place as any. No More Hesitation. Folks, I don't know about y'all, but the last thing I want to see is cops failing to hesitate to take shots. Lethal force in a police environment, as in all non-military environments, is a last ditch effort. If a cop comes across a grandpa in his living room with a shotgun, you'd better believe I'd like that cop to hesitate before pulling any triggers. If they don't, you end up with the despicable Dorner fiasco.

Second, the depictions of these 'threats' is universally worrisome. While I hardly think that a young mother at a park with her child is likely to randomly decide to shoot a police officer, the depiction that most bothered me was the pregnant woman in a nursery. (yes, even more than the small child; we'll get there though) All I could think seeing that picture was that the ONLY people who would want to practice with that particular picture are rapists and abusive husbands/boyfriends.

This picture, as well as the pictures of the older man and woman LABELED as being in their homes, are citizens defending their homes and children from a threat. I DO NOT CARE if that threat happens to be wearing a blue uniform. A cop under NO circumstances has any business coming into someone's home and shooting them. If that situation comes up for a cop, the proper solution is to retreat. While duty to retreat is an unpopular term among civilian shooters, CCW aficionados, and rabid gunnies like myself, it's applicable here. No civilian would ever be deemed innocent of murder should they force entry into someones home and shoot them, regardless of whether their victim was armed or not. Yes, the circumstances are different for cops with warrants, but I hardly think that justifies murdering people in their own homes.

Yes, cops have a high risk profession. Yes, there are some young mothers, kindly grandfathers, and even children who pose a threat to them. That is largely irrelevant. They knew the risks when they took the job. The blue uniform does not make their life worth more than that of any other human. On a practical level, I cannot come up with ANY circumstances under which a cop would ever need to shoot a child as young as the boy depicted (and I've got a fairly active imagination). On a more philosophical level though, I know there is no reason a cop should.

Cops have a right to protect themselves. Don't get me wrong on this. I just do not think that extends to taking the offensive against US citizens who are not an active threat to others (which is cyclic in that it then becomes a defensive action). Any cop who practices with these targets needs to take a HUGE step back and think very hard about what they would really do when faced with these situations. If their first impulse is to shoot, I would say not only that they aren't fit to be LEOs, but that they are really only fit for institutionalization.

Now, this next part sounds more conspiracy-theorist tinfoil hat, so those of you who think the government craps gold bricks and could never hurt the American people, I invite you to leave now. And, for that matter, don't bother coming back.

This company supplies the DHS. I don't know whether DHS is ordering specifically these targets, but they are at least doing serious business with a company that thinks this is appropriate, which is disturbing in and of itself. Additionally, there has been a figure bandied around a good bit recently.

DHS has purchased 2,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition over the last eighteen months. 2x10^9. 2 Billion with a B.

Scared? Context. At the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the entire US military went through 5.5Mil rounds per month. Doing a bit of back of the envelope calculation, 2bil rounds would allow the US military to fight at peak for.... 363.6 months, or 30 years.

Why, pray tell, does the Department of Homeland Defense need this much?

There are two likely potentials I see here. The first, DHS is preparing to put down a revolution. The second, DHS is preparing to create a revolution thus completely destroy what's left of America and install their progressivist utopia. *spits* Neither one of these is particularly appealing, I gotta say.

The long and the short of it is that I don't see any purpose those rounds could be put towards other than shooting Americans. For reasons I should hope are obvious, I find this purpose distasteful. I am distinctly disturbed by the fact that our law enforcement is gearing up for domestic war while practicing shooting facsimiles of children and pregnant women. I am unsure what can be done about it.

This much at least can be done. Get the word out. Make sure people know this is going on. Write emails (letters take too long to screen) and make phone calls. And, if the horrific instance of a coup comes to reality, be prepared to fight for this country. I will never fight against this country. I make no promises about the government.