Many Americans fear that the coming Fall election season will see a return of BLM-style riots on US streets, and especially in major cities. Corporate media has at times seemed to almost positively encourage this scenario given Trump's frontrunner status for the Republicans.
Here's one of a seeming myriad examples of the MSM being not exactly "subtle":
"Everything will change for European and Asian democracies if a man bent on dictatorship re-enters the White House," wrote Financial Times.
"If Trump wins, everything changes," the op-ed continued, with the author at one point suggesting even that nuclear Armageddon is right around the corner the minute Trump returns to office:
"The most worrying hedge against Washington’s exit from Pax Americana would be a rush for the nuclear threshold," FT wrote.
And for another recent example, The L.A. Times speculates that "election-related violence" is something more likely to target the political right. It's the "lesson" and supposed legacy of Trump, the publication wrote.
"However, Republicans should recall a cardinal lesson from the events of Jan. 6, 2021: The polarizing forces dividing America place mainstream Republicans in the crosshairs of their more radical brethren."
And accordingly, "any threat of election-related violence this year may target the political right even more so than Democrats and persons on the left."
Basically, voices from both sides of the aisle agree: we are headed into an election season which could spark mayhem on a level which could potentially surpass the chaos on city streets of the 2020 George Floyd riots, where whole blocks burned and innocent store owners were shot, and very often police and law enforcement were attacked in between widespread looting, and innocent bystanders brutally jumped and beaten by frenzied mobs.
The trend of an increasingly 'militarized' American police force has been rapidly increasing since 2006, with the surplus military gear being spread across every state. Having already documented America's conversation to a turnkey totalitarian banana republic (confirmed over a year later by Edward Snowden), the armored vehicles and even-more-armored personnel was last most evident in the mostly-peaceful chaos of Ferguson, Missouri; but if the media is stoking the fear once again - given Trump's lead - we could indeed see the armor and weapons shown below on display every night a 6pm on your evening news over the summer.
As we've been chronicling this week, ZeroHedge is here at the SHOT Show with our proverbial "boots on the ground" (though we are quite opposite to the interventionista Neocons of course), which is the world's largest shooting sports, hunting, and law enforcement industry expo of its kind. The closed-door event is held at the Venetian Expo in Vegas through Friday. It features 500+ suppliers, some of which are defense contractors, offering weapons and gear from Tier 1 operators to law enforcement to civilian markets.
We found that especially among suppliers of law enforcement, first responders, and producers of civil defense tech and products, the open question of whether American cities will be on fire going into November or also into January—when the next president takes office—is foremost on their minds. This theoretical scenario and conversation was "in the air" so to speak.
The BLM riots encouraged the industry to come up with lighter weight, sleek and modern protective gear as opposed to the older, more sluggish and bulky standard of police riot protective gear, which doesn't help with ease of rapid maneuverability.
Below: Like the ancient Roman phalanx maneuvering, but the 21st century version... companies like Defilade envisions the need for close-quarters rapid engagement fight and then flight speed (if need be) flexibility in their protective gear, also useful for prison guards and rapid response teams.
In general, light-weight and form-fitting protection is a prominent theme at this year's SHOT. They claim to produce the thinnest, most advanced protection against impact and blunt force trauma.
One interesting and unexpected surprise was the number of European and foreign suppliers of anti-riot measures and high tech crowd control items and gadgets.
Finland defense contractor comes to America, predicting riots
One distributor from Finland (shown), a country widely known as a peace-loving and pretty harmonious Scandinavian society (which obviously sees far fewer full-on riots and mass street unrest), said that they see the American market as ripe and as in need of their police riot response protective suits, which as it turns out can repel knife attacks along with deflecting large bricks (remember the whole rumored piles of bricks phenomenon and fears?) or skull-cracking projectiles hurled at great distances from angry crowds.
The company out of Finland specifically told us "no need to look at our tactical body armor collection—which the US already has in abundance, what American law enforcement really needs is our full body anti-riot gear because that's what Americans do more of [than Scandinavians for sure]—they riot"...
The Finnish company has seen much more demand in the good ole US-of-A... and not Scandinavia (well Sweden's Malmö is a big exception in terms of random mass violence perhaps).
More foreign companies worried about safe-guarding American democracy, ironically enough...
A Taiwan firm which focuses on non-lethal riot control measures & gear...
And Pakistan...
America's firefighters and first responders are increasingly coming under fire, literally
We were not surprised to see that fire departments across the nation have been sweeping up bullet-proof protection, giving the rising number of incidents where first-responders get shot by the very individuals they are seeking to rescue.
Increasingly, firefighters are first through the door in mental distress domestic disturbances or highly unpredictable suicide situations. Extra protection is needed for what first responders call Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) scenarios.
As it turns out the maker of the below is based very close to Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
And now for something more on the offense side of riot and hostile crowd control measures... we are assured these (below) won't kill targets even if fired at close range and with a head shot (unlike 40mm aerial flash-bangs that might score the unfortunate direct hit let's say)...
No more bulky "beanbag guns"
Alternative Ballistics makes a special nonlethal ball-bearing fired at high velocity with a conventional 9mm round embedded in the projectile's center which unleashes huge kinetic force on impact. It affixes to various pistol types, making the weapon non-lethal in the slit-second it takes to attach the "alternative" add-on (see video below).
No more bulky so-called "beanbag guns" to incapacitate someone (or more or less a shotgun, which could prove of a somewhat inconvenient size); instead, this fits on the belt. Compact and non-lethal is the name of the game, and this is cutting edge.
See their demo...
A perp thinks they're merely dealing with a harmless mall cop... is that a toy? what's in that belt?
Think again...
For something definitely more lethal (and we're not necessarily talking about the firearm itself)...
We just included this cause it's tactikool...
Just in case things have to go lethal real quick: a bespoke tactical shotgun...
Let's just call the below a monster of a multi-task breaching tool, especially good for any unpredictable urban environment where a bad guy could be holed up in an impossible to reach place.
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Below: Penn Arms' PGR 40mm Pump Multi-Launcher...
There's increasing overlap involving high quality, lighter weight military grade weaponry with domestic law enforcement utilization cross-over (things tend to go lethal boom on military side vs. things go merely concussed in civilian domestic situations). This particular company has a major contract supplying Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), but sees increasing demand on the domestic police and SWAT side of things.
Not a Pizza Hut worker despite appearances...
The below won't kill you but it won't feel too good either...
In a follow-up report, we will later examine the toys that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other federal agencies have deployed throughout the land (and sometimes in the hands of local or state agencies) as 'early detection' for a radioactive dirty bomb, even with the capability to pick up on nasty substances/nuke-related materials being transported across state lines. The public doesn't know about this. But it certainly reveals the "thinking" of federal bureaucrats. Let's hope things don't ever come to that.
Lest this humble SHOT Show review gets mistaken for some kind of simplistic 'apologetic' for our increasingly militarized police departments everywhere (a years'-long and very worrisome post 9/11 trend for sure), we leave you with this, which we certainly don't officially endorse in a literal sense, but just to show that the dominant streak or outlook here remains firmly Libertarian and 2nd Amendment-driven through and through...
Too far?
True castle doctrine has never been tried 🏰 https://t.co/x9DFtDH5Zo
— Ivan (@kommandostore) January 22, 2024
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For our earlier SHOT coverage, see-->
