This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 15, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown. In Ferguson, Missouri, the message has been heard

a militarized response to protesters was inappropriate and very likely made a bad situation worse.

The focus now should shift to how the federal government has enabled and encouraged this

kind of reaction through subsidizing military-grade weapons for local cops.

So says Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's project on criminal justice.

It's night and day, as far as like the police response to the protesters.

Finally, people were paying attention to what the critics were saying,

is that the militarized response was a big mistake, and things went as they should be.

You know, the people got to protest and make their point

and there was very little violence and lawlessness.

It was the way it should have been from the very beginning.

But the impulse to engage in that type of response, you want to try to be able to understand

why police felt that that was necessary, but it just seems like the biggest weapon you have is

the one you bring out when there's any kind of violence.

Right, I mean, the Conservatives make a point in that, you know know you got to stop lawlessness and

vandalism and that sort of stuff but the prudent way to handle it would have been to

have some of that equipment nearby but in the trunks of cars.

The problem was is they brought out their heavy weaponry at the very beginning before

there had been any problems.

And when they started shooting tear gas,

that made a bad situation worse.

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