> So regular riot control equipment in 95% of the world...

Yes, militarization of the police is normalized in many countries. That doesn't make it acceptable. They're trigger-happy and violent. It's part of the culture.

> The only other stuff they mention are semi-auto rifles which are not militarization. Us civilians have the same rifles which are way more accurate than a standard handgun. I dont want an officer using a handgun at 50-100 yards trying to stop an active shooter, I want them to have the best tool for the job which would be a patrol rifle. That's safer for everyone, especially bystanders.

Do you believe that there needs to be a line of officers wielding rifles behind a line of riot cops with flashbangs and tear gas launchers (used liberally and indiscriminately) behind a line of shielded riot cops grabbing things from protesters and generally trying to provoke a reaction? These things all work in tandem, in this context. That line of cops is part of their show of force, as they take anti-cop protests very personally. It's a form of intimidation and escalation.

> How is riot control pads / shields and an armored vehicle to stop bullets and rocks being thrown militarization?

Half of that is literally military equipment and US police departments are frequently under a "warrior" mindset. It's been heavily exported to various different PDs. They treat confrontations as a fight between them and the "bad guys", not public safety or law enforcement. Having a bunch of military or tacticool gear is part of that mindset.

> I don't see any offensive weapons used other than crowd control agents which last I checked are used in most of the world for the same purpose.

Normalization is not the same as moral or acceptable. Plus, this isn't quite a consistent take when it comes to these kinds of things. When Soviet bloc countries used far less serious responses to color revolutions, they were decried as totalitarian, antidemocratic monsters. But we do worse here and it's just normal business as usual.

And those "crowd control" agents are chemical weapons, explosives, and "less lethal" weapons causing permanent disability and injury. I watched a woman get shot with a grenade (either flashbang or teargas) and she went into cardiac arrest, only living because medics rushed her to the hospital. She was forward but still 30 feet from any officers. She was shot straight in the chest. She was just standing there and yelling.

> Judging how the protests have turned to riots over the past few months in major cities, they are completely justified in doing so.

They absolutely are not. It's a form of escalation and the cops have frequently provoked these responses with theses "shows of force".

> Getting rocks, molotov cocktails and everything else under the sun thrown at you when you're trying to stop people from burning down communities would make me want the best protection too.

The cops aren't trying to stop people from burning down communities. They don't actually do that, they don't deescalate, they don't actually even defend the private property (which is usually much of their function) so much as blast through and hurt people indiscriminately.

> But even in those cases the vehicles are used as transport and command / observation platforms. You mostly have a problem with crowd control tactics it sounds like which are pretty standard when dealing with a declared riot. Here is a good video on the tactics with explanations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9bit2-1pg

I'm very familiar with their tactics, they used them against me.