Disaster strikes when soldiers play cop

Every time the National Guard gets called in to handle city policing, things go off the rails fast. Just picture it: one of Pete Hegseth’s so-called “warriors” - a soldier with zero training in dealing with everyday city life or the tangle of civilian gun laws - suddenly comes face-to-face with your classic “good guy with a gun.” Next thing you know, the guardsman panics, someone gets shot, and instead of holding the shooter accountable, the whole system circles the wagons. The victim gets dragged through the mud on every news channel, painted like the villain, while the guy in uniform walks free, maybe even gets a book deal and blows his money on vapes and a used Dodge Viper. If some prosecutor dares to file charges, you just know there’s a pardon waiting in the wings before anything sticks. Meanwhile, the headlines go wild and the incident becomes one more excuse to crack down with even more force. People keep acting like if we just play nice, the folks in charge will stop tightening the screws, but that’s never how it works - every year, the response just gets more aggressive. The only slight comfort is that, technically, the military does have stricter rules of engagement than the usual “I felt threatened” excuse that police use, and honestly, most people aren’t about to pick a fight with the Guard anyway. But all it takes is one disaster for the whole cycle to start up again.