Matt BlazeThe knowledge that the National Guard troops that I must pass on my way to my office this morning are now armed and with live ammo is *not* making me feel safer.
Seriously, I was concerned about this in an abstract way when I learned of the new policy, but in person, my reaction was involuntary and visceral. "These people might shoot me" was constantly on my mind.
Are they just going to start shooting? Probably not. But if there's a commotion, I can easily imagine being caught in escalating crossfire.
Interesting. On the way home, there were far fewer Guard troops around Union Station than usual, and none of the heavy vehicles (though there were several troops outside the Metro escalators), but I also noticed troops posted at several Metro stations that I'd not seen them at previously.
All this said, while I find their (now armed) presence unsettling and dangerous, the Guard troops have been so far in my experience approachable and friendly. This is in sharp contrast to the DEA/ICE/etc federal law enforcement now patrolling around the District, who are generally masked, standoffish, and seem to be looking for trouble.
Misuse Case@mattblaze I’m not worried about the Guard (yet). The problem is that their presence emboldens the Fed goons and police who want to act out.
Tobin Baker@mattblaze I wonder how many of them don't want to be there
Mᴀʀᴋ VᴀɴᴅᴇWᴇᴛᴛᴇʀɪɴɢ@tobinbaker @mattblaze I suspect that most would say that this is not the job for which they enlisted.
@brainwagon @tobinbaker I think you'd have trouble getting them to admit that while in uniform, however.
NosirrahSec 🏴☠️ guillotine enthusiast@tobinbaker @mattblaze I say this as former enlisted. Near zero chance that they want to be doing this shit. Anyone saying otherwise is lying or broken.
Matthew Schulkind@mattblaze after 9/11 this was a common sight in NYC for many years, and at least I don't remember horror stories from back then. No idea if they actually did anything to make anyone safer though. Most or all had highly visible long rifles of some sort.
@mschulkind Indeed, though there were a number of differences. Most obviously, NYC had just recently actually been attacked, and I believe the troops had been requested by the state. In DC, they're imposed on us, and no one really knows what they're doing here.
@mattblaze ya, also very different motivating political environment. Who knows how that has seeped into their heads.
Maybe we can at least hope people join the national guard to help people and aren't all ideologically aligned with the current administration.
ben@mattblaze At a guess: this is probably not the sort of thing most people join the National Guard for, and so they’re not really inclined to exacerbate (if that’s the right word) the situation. Whereas it’s probably much closer to the sort of thing one joins ICE/DEA for (even if still an unusual situation), and so they’re far more motivated to perpetuate it?
CartyBoston@mattblaze The National Guard are like the ROTC kids in school. For the most part they are doing it for the financial support.
Adam Greenfield@mattblaze Christ, this reads like a passage three-quarters of the way through “Random Acts of Senseless Violence.” The water’s just about on the boil and way too many of the frogs haven’t noticed it yet.
fedward 
@mattblaze it's really unnerving, and I can't help but think that gun violence is, in fact, the desired outcome, because it creates a pretext for even more violent suppression of the populace.
vandenberglegs@fedward @mattblaze This is exactly the planned outcome. They WANT gun violence so they can declare martial law and suspend elections.
Hasufin@mattblaze Trump is just wanting to have himself a Kent State.
DianeI feel like trump is pandering to the type of person who would love being a plantation overseerer. So much of what he does is to make people scared and miserable.
Dan McDonaldVery accurate assessment. At this point the Dixiecrat/Confederate/Slaver virus has metastasized in the GOP and its name is MAGA.
Steve Bellovin@mattblaze Why, just because most of them aren't trained in handgun use or rules for the use of deadly force, and are apparently carrying pistols that some believe can fire by themselves without a trigger pull?
@SteveBellovin Right. One might ask "how's this different from armed police", but it *is* different. Police get involved in bad shootings all the time, of course, but this is worse. The training is different, the mission is different, the attitude is different, and the accountability is different.
@mattblaze I think I've told this story before, but since I can't find it I'll recount it again.
I've never been so scared in an airport as I was on a return flight to EWR from RDU very soon after 9/11. There was a good old boy National Guardsman with an M-16, waving it around and trying to be "helpful". I know now, but didn't then, that the rifle wasn't loaded, but he just seemed so eager to use it…
I've never been so scared in an airport as I was on a return flight to EWR from RDU very soon after 9/11. There was a good old boy National Guardsman with an M-16, waving it around and trying to be "helpful". I know now, but didn't then, that the rifle wasn't loaded, but he just seemed so eager to use it…
Christian Huitema@SteveBellovin @mattblaze I saw the instruction page carried by the soldiers, and they looked very much like the instructions we were giving sentries at the air base 50 years ago -- when we were concerned with possible terrorist attacks.
@SteveBellovin @mattblaze at the time I was horrified that the guys in my command were given loaded pistols for patrols and sentry duty, but their training did not include pistol practice. It is very easy to miss and hit something else when firing a pistol.
mkb@huitema @SteveBellovin @mattblaze The way I heard one police trainer express it is, “There are no misses on the street. Every round you fire hits *something*, if not your intended target then some other person or property.”
@mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze To be fair, when I explained that lack of training to the colonel I immediately got the ammo allocation requested to train the troops. I expect a bunch of junior officers are going through a variation of that in DC.
James Kemp@huitema @mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze I did armed guard a few times as a reservist, but with the rifle I was trained with. Why dod your guys get pistols issued rather than rifles?
FWIW it was Irish terrorists we were worried about in the UK back then, and we were trained in rules of engagement as well as marksmanship
@themself @mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze That question was above my pay grade. It was the French Air Force, and the order came from the general. But there is some practicality to it. At the time, the alternative would have been a MAS 56 rifle, which is not great in close quarters, or a MAC 49 sub-machine gun, which sprays bullets all over the place and seems a bad idea when civilians are nearby.
@huitema @mkb @SteveBellovin @mattblaze fair point. I can see why you'd avoid the SMG, they'd be a nightmare for guard/civil police duties.
Our SLR (a FN FAL variant) wasn't great in built up areas either. The bullets used to go through walls and hit other things.
Chuck@SteveBellovin @mattblaze My intuition is that it is a mix of these two thoughts. The media has left impressions in my mind about how soldiers use weapons and how police use weapons, the former aggressively kill 'the enemy' and the latter (in theory) kill 'crooks'. When we link that with the Administration calling people who think like I do 'the enemy' it suggests soldiers should shoot me. Presumably if they labeled me a 'crook' the police would be equally threatening.
@mattblaze @SteveBellovin Evidently some of them will be issued problematic sidearms as well:
Pseudonymous 
There has been some investigation on that, and the #USMilitary recently returned the pistols to service.
Tindra@mattblaze my local town fair pulled out all the cops (and borrowed some from county and state) and they were in body armor and multiple visible weapons and hanging out in clusters and… yeah. Defo not feeling safer guys.
Greger@mattblaze Up untill July 1st, police here in Norway could not be be armed without special cause. But that law has been changed, and they are now in general armed. It does not make feel me safer either. So I can absolutely understand your view on this. It makes me really uncomfortable and insecure when I see firearms outside of expected settings.
David Bremner@mattblaze I'm pretty sure that in your case, that is the intent.
Leendaal@mattblaze so it is working perfectly as intended.
Raquel Vanisse
Rebecca Wallace@mattblaze Feel sicker, maybe.
Andrew@mattblaze what are we supposed to do, leave our troops undefended from sandwich-based attacks?
Ed@mattblaze Kent State University on May 4, 1970 comes to mind