It was a message sent to the "powers that be" and to the police. The only difficult position for the police is are they going to claim "just doing my job" or uphold the Constitution.
The government just did the very same thing last week with their show of power in Guam. Much bigger things at stake with international muscle flexing.
3-2-1. Get ready for the..... those guys were a bunch of wannabe Rambo type. Go concealed and demonstrate.... Because that's gotten the point across sooo well.
Good point equating National saber rattling with Domestic saber rattling.
The govt is using force on sovereign individuals.
They need to realize there is the potential for a return in kind.
The key is that the use of force domestically must be initiated by those seeking to impede on the freedom of the people.
When the colonists gathered at Lexington they never intended to use their force, it was a display of force.
Who fired the first shot did not matter as even after it was fired there was not sufficient damage to start the Revolution at that point. It did motivate more Minutemen to leave their homes and prepare to meet the British at Concord. Farmers in some cases ran distances close to twenty miles to make it into action at some point during the day.
Two things galvanized the combatants and created the divide that meant what was in reality Civil War.
Both of those events were misunderstandings.
The colonists saw the smoke of the British burning captured military equipment in Concord center and thought the British were putting the town to light - that gave them the resolve to fight.
The British suffered two mortally wounded at the Bridge when the Colonists decided to confront them. After the short skirmish the British main force retreated to Concord and the Minutemen more or less dispersed. A platoon of British that had been across the Bridge returned from their scout to an unoccupied scene of skirmish. Unoccupied except for their two dead soldiers. One of the soldiers was mutilated. After the skirmish a young boy came upon the two Brits and he beat the skull in of one that was still alive. The returning soldiers thought the Minutemen had scalped him and they returned to tell the main body that the Colonists were taking scalps.
From that moment on it was a war. The Colonists fighting against an enemy that would burn the homes of non combatants and the British fighting against people they thought would scalp their dead. Later in the day there was no sense that the actions of either side were a "show of force". They shot, bayoneted, and bludgeoned each other with enthusiasm and as two separate people, no longer countrymen.
The "uncommitted" on both sides chose to support based on what they saw as the aggression of the other side.
Fence sitters here will not be willing to support a cause unless it is demonstrated to them that the other side is a legitimate threat.
Whichever side shows violence first will repel the fence sitters.
Perhaps it was good those people in Texas were disarmed by the Sheriff in his MRAP.
It showed that when confronted with force they stood down, choosing not to escalate. They made a show of force yet a desire not to use it.
Whats going to happen to bring the Boog will be an error.
Had that MRAP showed up and immediately gunned down the display of force Joe fence sitter will decide which side he is on.
These things require a martyr for the population to rally around.
