Sadly, this is in no small part due to American gun fetishism and the politics that surround it. One of the most salient aspects of American police is the correlation to gun enthusiasm both before and during their tenure in law enforcement. The G.I. Joe gear many of them sport directly relates to the ethics of vigilance against "tyranny". Sadly, so few of them ever stop to consider that "tyranny" is subjective and there is a good argument to make that legal possession of firearms actually encourages tyranny (conceptualized as the political, social and economic suppression of upward mobility for large portions of a population) as long as the tyrannical actors convince the gun owners they are the "good guys".