Don the only reason I really don't mind the cops surrounding my house is what are you going to do about it? If they accidentally surround your house, what can you really say or do? If it happens, it happens. The only way to effect change here would be to start a campaign to eliminate SWAT teams and their responses unless shots are fired. Of course that isn't going to happen because the entire purpose (at least what they tell us and the original purpose) is to peacefully end potentially violent situations. That is why they go "overboard".
And of course, if the Branch Davidians had just come out peacefully to talk to BATF, everything would have been fine, right? And the Weavers--what the heck were Kevin and the boy thinking? They should have gone back to the cabin, called the Cour D'Alene PD and asked them why men in camouflage body armor with silenced submachine guns and automatic rifles were hiding in their woods.
Why use these two examples? How do they apply in this situation? To answer you literally, if the Branch Davidians would have come out, they might be alive today. Being fried certainly isn't helping them any. The Weaver situation was just a bad situation that really couldn't have been avoided. Dog runs after cops, as dogs do. Cops shoot dog. Owners defend themselves and get upset about dog, shoot back. Cops get hit. Cops hit armed youth. FBI murders his wife. The only good thing about these scenarios is that the heat that came from their bundling has changed the situation. They often don't respond the same anymore to those situations. But how do they apply to the cops accidentally surrounding your house? Did they "accidentally" surround Mt. Carmel? Did they accidentally surround Ruby Ridge? No, they had a specific purpose for being there, no matter how flawed it was. In this scenario, they responded to a residential neighborhood where they believed an armed intruder was inside the house. Big deal! He wasn't even there!!! So maybe next time they do more research before going in. Maybe next time they run the plates on the car and find out it doesn't belong to the man in question, but to someone else in the neighborhood. Maybe they did learn from this situation.
Sometimes life is just tough. Sometimes you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. What are you going to do about it? That is life. We can sit around and complain about it, but what good is it going to do? Sure someone screwed up in San Antonio. So do we eliminate all SWAT teams because of it? That is pretty wishful thinking. Sorry I sound so nonchalant about it all. It is because of my personal belief that I am not in absolute control. I believe that things happen for a reason beyond my reasoning or comprehension. Sometimes those things are going to be bad, and I might not like them. The only thing I can do is respond to the best of my abilities. If I make it, great. If I don't, then it was meant to be. You can't control it. Why worry about it? Prepare for the worst, train yourself mentally, and give it your all. Cops surround my house, that is what I am going to try to do. If they shoot my dog while I am taking it for a walk and I shoot them back, what can I do? Life sucks sometimes. Catch 22. I can't throw off the entire system just because of one bad misfortune. That just isn't realistic. Now a negligent series of misfortunes? Sure, the system needs reworked. Do we have a negligent series of misfortunes here? It is hard to make that case on "what ifs". In this situation, everyone reacted reasonably and safely. No one was injured. Everyone did their jobs the way they were supposed to once the event started rolling. Cops sometimes are competent and SWAT teams don't always have to use their "toys". What if someone would have got hurt? Yeah what if? What if a police car crashes through my wall right now and I shoot him thinking he is an armed robber and then when his back up gets here they shoot me thinking I just shot a cop, but it really was an armed robber that stole his car, and my wife comes home and commits suicide and then my sister who owes me a ton of money ends up getting my insurance money? What if.
