Curmudgeon:

First you say "Has the Second Amendment/Assault Weapon Lobby become a destabilizing force in the US?". Then you say later in the same post "The question I am posing is not about gun rights. This is not a debate about the second amendment per se.". So I am a little confused, you say one thing then say you aren't saying that but when you said the first thing you used as tendentious a phrase as can be so it seems to me you are saying that.

And you have three unspoken premises, the first being that somehow rifles styled to look like military rifles are more suitable than say, a 7mm magnum or 30.06 elk rifle, the second being that it is inevitable that protesters will start shooting officers and the third that this is an especially dangerous situation for officers. I reject them all. If the desire was to shoot officers in some kind of riot it would be much more effective to snipe at them with a rifle of the aforementioned calibers from someplace on the periphery than to spray and pray from within the crowd if only because the other members of the crowd may take strong exception to murdering policemen and being placed in danger by the shooter. The members of the crowd in ABQ did just that, told the guy to put it away.

I don't see how protesters shooting at riot control officers is inevitable just because some UNM hanger-on show off decided to wave around his piece. Where all this happened was right close to UNM.

Third, the most dangerous part of an officers job is the traffic stop, and traffic accidents. That is where people die. If you look back at the incidents where large numbers of officers died, it is mostly traffic related incidents, accidents, terror attacks (OKC ad 9-11) and prison riots. Regular riots aren't in there.

I just so happen to have personal experience with a street 'riot' in ABQ. At that time it was mostly UNM types, students or not, having a good old socially concerned time. From looking at the photos of this incident the crowd appears to be the same type.