Your inaccurate statements undermine your point. I believe most National Guard troops carry rifles, not machine guns. Also, they in fact are trained to use them.
As worrying as it is to have more guns on the subways of NYC, I find it equally worrying that these incidents are being used as pretext to search innocent civilians without cause, and that it will inevitably result in undue scrutiny for POC (or whoever those in charge want to harass).
The one upside of cellphones was to normalise having one-sided conversations with imaginary friends.
Yeah. Searching everyone’s bags isn’t going to stop another incident of someone being kicked onto the tracks. Yet they’re using that incident as one of the excuses.
More guns and soldiers/cops is never the solution.
National Guard and Army Reserves have regularly been deployed on NYC’s subways, train stations, and major sites/landmarks since 9/11. Often doing bag checks, or running bomb sniffing dogs. But they mostly stand around in fatigues. They’re just less persistently out in random subway stations these days.
It’s bit unnerving sometimes, almost certainly unnecessary in most of the places it’s done. But I’m not aware of any actual incidents, and that’s a lot more than you can say for the cops.
My brother was deployed with the Army reserve to Pen Station and multiple courthouses around NYC for years.
That’s kind of the unmentioned detail here. Those guys are already there on the regular. They’ll just spread them out more. Extra layer of theater on this.
NYC cops are some of the highest paid in the country. There are approximately 40,000 of them! There are a total of 472 subway stations in New York City. What’s the problem?
As @euansmith noted above, this is about security theater, not about any real “solution”…
Also, so what if they find somebody carrying a knife? That’s not illegal in and of itself. So either they ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶i̶s̶c̶a̶t̶e̶ steal it and violate someone’s right to carry a knife (not to mention cost that person money and/or time to replace it) or they do nothing, in which case why are they searching bags in the first place?
they’ll surely just take the knives of people of obvious criminals, as they have a special sense about who’s gonna crime and who won’t… /s
Huh. I did not know that about them already being deployed in cities. I feel vaguely uneasy with the new knowledge, but glad to know, all the same. Thanks!
Also, hope your brother didn’t have to do any terrible shit in the line of duty.
That’s not the training under question, though - the weapons training that they get is what we don’t want or even expect them to use. The training they don’t have is in being security/law enforcement. Which, given the ugly history of NYC cops searching people of color, and that cops ostensibly do have that training, doesn’t exactly bode well for hopes this won’t involve abusive searches.
It’s kinda just NYC, DC and then some Government buildings in other places.
A lot of it is theatrics, and it is uncomfortable at minimum sometimes.
But on the more practical end they’re in major hubs, and along transit routes, and key infrastructure during like state visits or “credible threat” circumstances.
Pretty much a permanent presence at places like th Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn and The World Trade Center.
And there was a straight up Army field site in Penn Station for a long time. It’s less pervasive this long after the war on terror mentality started to fade.
That does speak to this not being for or about residents. They’re already used to seeing these guys ride to work in uniform, and occasional “oh god what’s going on now” moments when they’re out and around.
Hochul is playing to the State’s red districts where they’re all convince the 5 Boroughs are an open war zone.
Pedantry about the correct nomenclature of automatic weapons of war is ‘t particularly helpful.
Ok. “Barely-trained.” Much better. 
NYC subways don’t have many guns on them, so adding Guard troops does significantly increase the risk with their mere presence, statistically.
I guess the best part of Guard training is that their rules of engagement are more restrictive than the policies of the NYPD. A Guard soldier who shoots a civiliian would actually be charged with a crime in the military!
Per capita, NYC has the highest number of lawyers — and a hell of a lot of subway riders. Big Apple 
Lawsuit City
Military, even weekend military, have extensive training in Rules of Engagement, and use of force/escalation protocols - and the consequences for violations resulting in inappropriate violence are generally swift, and unpleasant.
The same cannot be said of Officer Friendly, and his police union.
It was an attempt at correcting an exaggeration, not meant to be pedantic.
I wasn’t implying the NYC subway was already chock full of guns. I was simply saying, whatever guns are already there, these would only add to them. So we’re in agreement here.
How did that work out at Kent State?
I’d bet that if a Guard soldier shoots a civilian, all manner of justification would be built around it (whether correct or not) in an attempt to clear the Guard of culpability.
Is that a rifle, machine gun, or what? And is the fellow on the right carrying anything more than a pistol? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.
Point taken that it’s the security/law enforcement training at issue, not the firearms training. But given that none of us knows what security/law enforcement training they’re really getting (if any), it’s pointless to speculate. I think we’re all in agreement that with training, this can only lead to bad things; without training, worse things.
hey now. you’re not allowed to use common terms for gunpowder stickem ups.
that’s why the second amendment says only “arms” should be regulated. even they knew specific descriptors would only cause trouble. best we all just remain calm and carry on.
( let’s instead talk about camo. in the subway )
… you’d think they’d have gray stuff ready to go 
Well it was. It’s not an exaggeration to call a M5(?) a machine gun when, even though it is an automatic rifle, it is a far more devastating weapon of war than some proper machine guns in terms of rate of fire, round velocity, and effective range.
Better than in Ferguson, MO or even in NYC. Kent State caused both cultural change in the counrty and serious change within the military.
