Comment by akoboldfrying

> And I have no interest in the distinction between Joe Average and LEOs. That's about 6 months of training

This simply isn't a reasonable position to hold. Either we maintain a restricted class of people with authority that exceeds the authority of regular people, or everyone in society has the same level of authority (be that the level of police now, the level of regular people now, or somewhere in between). But the latter scenario is obviously worse, even taking into account occasional abuses by those in the restricted class.

You might as easily say that the only difference between Joe Average and a surgeon is X years of medical school.