A major reason police officers wear uniforms is for their obvious identification as a legal law enforcement entity formally trained and endorsed by the state. While it’s generally symbolic, it is at least a basic-ass demonstration of good faith identification/adherence to the law. EVEN IF it’s just performative, it’s still at least saying their actions will be in accordance with the law, and at least implying that their intent is enforcement of that same law.

However, if they not only ditch the uniform, but even literally wear things to mask their identity, the symbolism of good-faith action and intent go out the window. Why would any reasonable person trust such a blatant disregard for clear establishment of authority figures? Furthermore, if such symbolism is reversed in such a manner, how could any reasonable person not assume ill-intent? If they’re taking away even US citizens for an indeterminate amount of time and to an indeterminate place, then wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the people that encounter law enforcement to resist by any means–even lethal means? And to further compound the problem, there were recent high-profile political murders by someone impersonating a police officer. So not only are we unable to trust legitimate police officers while they’re in uniform, we now have(admittedly weak(for now)) evidence that the uniform no longer implies good-faith intent of the person wearing it. Which leads me to one final major issue; if our confidence in officers’ law-bound behavior is shattered, and our confidence in our citizen status to ensure our rights is shattered, and our confidence in police uniforms being fairly reliable identification symbolism is shattered, then what amount of confidence is left in any law enforcement officials when they then wear clothing that is symbolically indicative of someone acting in bad faith with ill-intent? And then local law enforcement, in uniform, protect and assist alleged federal law enforcement in their very high-profile raids.

So, moral reasoning aside, it would be unwise to even engage with any law enforcement or anyone that claims to be law enforcement. They can’t be trusted and their intent is unknown. They are visibly armed with a variety of weapons and are currently engaging in illegal operations systematically–even though the confines of current law effectively gives them legal means to do whatever they want. All that said, it can reasonably argued that it’s effectively a death sentence if you get swept up by someone claiming to be law enforcement, regardless of whether or not they can be confidently identified as such. All that to say: some fed bois are gonna get smoked before the end of the year and they’ve earned it by undermining themselves in the public eye. I have extreme confidence that things will get better in the long run, but as for the foreseeable future, the worst is yet to come.

Tl;dr: Law enforcement abandoning clear uniform identification for bad-faith/ill-intent symbolism logically justifies lethal resistance. There will probably be multiple shootings of feds by the end of the year at this rate. If some alphabet feds get shot, could be claimed as a cases belli for some real bullshit.