The town of Ferguson, Missouri, has been flooded with heavily armed SWAT officers in the wake of the Aug. 9 killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown by a police officer. According to some reports, upwards of 70 officers decked out not just in riot gear, but in equipment suited for foreign battlefields, took to the streets Wednesday night in an attempt to disperse the largely peaceful demonstrations organized to protest Brown's death. If the nation needed a poster child for the militarization of its police forces, it just got one.

At Business Insider, Paul Szoldra, a former U.S. Marine, broke down some of the equipment he's seen law enforcement officials equipped with: short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles with high-powered scopes, six extra magazines, loaded with 30 rounds each, heavy body armor, military camouflage, and all of this riding around in armored trucks resembling mine-resistant vehicles used on the battlefield. Many combat veterans have since pointed out that the SWAT officers are more heavily armed and outfitted than they themselves were while patrolling the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan.