Title: Bite the Bullet - We've Got Too Many Agencies With Armed Agents - TheBlaze
Headings: Bite the Bullet - We've Got Too Many Agencies With Armed Agents
Bite the Bullet - We've Got Too Many Agencies With Armed Agents
As of 2011, there are at least 25,000 sworn (and armed) law enforcement officers working for federal agencies not traditionally associated with law enforcement.

Content: There is also the General Services Administration, the Department of Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development—and the list goes on. This is not to say that these agencies do not pursue, in many cases, real violations and crimes. And the protections intended by the laws themselves may be necessary. But the problem is that state and local law enforcement should be tasked to handle many of the issues that have been transformed into federal concerns. There is a lot of overlapping and duplicative effort with these federal agencies. With approximately 800,000 local and state police officers in the United States, the burden of enforcing laws that cover wildlife, agriculture, or other localized issues should fall on those closest—and therefore most accountable—to the people they police. As we head into the thick of the 2012 election, a majority of the American people claim to wanted a smaller federal government. Nowhere is the power and reach of the state more acutely felt than in law enforcement. But unless Americans begin to push back against this avalanche of federal police and regulators, the number of people receiving a paycheck to investigate and prosecute average citizens for opaque and even unknowable federal violations will grow dramatically. Editor's Note: