Cops are armed when civilians can't be, often with weapons civilians can't have. I can't tell you how sick I get of seeing notations in catalogs like Brigade Quartermaster that certain items are for cops only.
Cops live and operate within a strict hierarchy, usually with titles like "sergeant", "lieutenant", "captain", and so forth. Most of them wear military-style uniforms, and an argument can be made that so-called "plainclothes" operations ought to be outlawed. Increasingly, they wear military battledress and carry military weapons.
Cops form a culture all to themselves, like professional soldiers, and usually have little to do with those who are not cops. They do call us "civilians". I never heard this term "little people" before. They also call us "assholes" and say that the public just consists of criminals who haven't been caught yet. I know because I was there at one time.
Yeah, I understand the theory that they're civilians, too. I repeat that it's bullshit. What they are, in fact, is an occupying military force, with strategic bases in every hamlet in the nation -- which is why they and their hangers-on lie to us and possibly to themselves about being civilians, too.
They are the very standing army that the Founding Fathers were afraid of.
And for good reason.
L. Neil Smith
In response last night to a post I made on a mailing list about how cops refer to non-cops as "civilians" when they, too, are in fact "civilians."