History Main / OddlyOvertrainedSecurity

** ''Judge Dredd'' writer Michael Carroll has said that the story he's always wanted to do is about the people who go through the gruelling process of becoming a highly-trained Judge ... and end up as a supply clerk or similar. The Judges do not have civilian support staff.

** In the Philippines it's not unusual to see even [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Fil-security-guard_9025.jpg mall cops packing heat,]] up to and including automatic weapons and shotguns. This is mostly because firearms, legitimately acquired and otherwise, are so common that more lightly armed guards are not taken seriously by most career criminals. This goes double for the PNP as by late 2010's, they are now also armed amost exclusively with automatic rifles and traded their police uniforms with camo uniforms to the point that they look less like police officers and more like an occupying army.

** In the Philippines it's not unusual to see even [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Fil-security-guard_9025.jpg mall cops packing heat,]] up to and including automatic weapons and shotguns. This is mostly because firearms, legitimately acquired and otherwise, are so common that more lightly armed guards are not taken seriously by most career criminals.

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** ''Judge Dredd'' writer Michael Carroll has said that the story he's always wanted to do is about the people who go through the gruelling process of becomic a highly-trained Judge ... and end up as a supply clerk or similar. The Judges do not have civillian support staff.

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* ''Film/MenInBlackII'': J re-recruits K from his retirement at a post office. The retiree deals with a spilled coffee by issuing orders like he's containing a nuclear breach. This scene does admittedly take place in the sorting room, and getting spilled coffee all over someone else's mail is a great way to get yourself in a whole hell of a lot of trouble, but it definitely hints to J that his old partner might not be entirely happy in retirement.
* ''Film/SpiesLikeUs''. An abandoned movie theatre is guarded by plainclothes men armed with automatic weapons. This is RuleOfFunny as the 'theatre' is actually a working component of the Strategic Defence Initiative.

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* Lampshaded and exploited in ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience'', when a trio of {{Mad Scientist}}s break into a government facility that's disguised as an ordinary recycling plant... with four security guards with rifles posted outside. The ringleader notes that this was an important clue to the location of the McGuffin they're trying to steal, and then for an encore he uses binoculars to look over a guard's shoulder when he enters the code to unlock the door when he goes inside to take a leak.

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* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' with Slab Rankle, a mall cop who [[MundaneMadeAwesome seems to think he's some kind of military super commander]], doing stuff like kidnapping and imprisoning misbehaving customers, boobytrapping the mall with lethal obstacles, and creating a horde of zombies to do his bidding.

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* Lampshaded and eventually justified in ''Fanfic/AllGuardsmanParty''. The party is harassed by an oddly determined and overarmed traffic cop who stops at nothing to take them down. It turns out that this particular cop isn't an ordinary member of the planet's police force--he's an Arbites, one of the Imperium's interplanetary law enforcers, who was tasked with managing the planet's whole police force, and got stuck managing traffic.

Some examples may be justified by the story; for example, an area under military occupation or martial law will often see soldiers in many roles held by policemen under more normal cicrumstances.

Despite being the best of the best, they are also everywhere and doing every security oriented job, including traffic cop. The reasons are various: laziness or lack of research on the part of the writers, RuleOfCool, conservation of animation or costuming budget, etc. Some examples may be justified by the story; for example, an area under military occupation or martial law will often see soldiers in many roles held by policemen under more normal cicrumstances.

Despite being the best of the best, they are also everywhere and doing every security oriented job, including traffic cop. The reasons are various: laziness or lack of research on the part of the writers, RuleOfCool, conservation of animation or costuming budget, etc.

* The infamous "[[http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/ Mall Ninja]]" ''claimed'' to be this.

* Lampshaded and exploited in ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience'', when a trio of MadScientists break into a government facility that's disguised as an ordinary recycling plant... with four security guards with rifles posted outside. The ringleader notes that this was an important clue to the location of the McGuffin they're trying to steal, and then for an encore he uses binoculars to look over a guard's shoulder when he enters the code to unlock the door when he goes inside to take a leak.

** In the Philippines it's not unusual to see even [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Fil-security-guard_9025.jpg mall cops packing heat]], up to and including automatic weapons and shotguns. This is mostly because firearms, legitimately acquired and otherwise, are so common that more lightly armed guards are not taken seriously by most career criminals.

Despite being the best of the best, they are also everywhere and doing every security oriented job, including traffic cop. The reasons are various - laziness or lack of research on the part of the writers, RuleOfCool, conservation of animation or costuming budget, etc.

* Lampshaded and exploited in ''Webcomic/AMiracleOfScience'', when a trio of MadScientists break into a government facility that's disguised as an ordinary recycling plant... with four security guards with rifles posted outside. The DangerouslyGenreSavvy ringleader notes that this was an important clue to the location of the McGuffin they're trying to steal, and then for an encore he uses binoculars to look over a guard's shoulder when he enters the code to unlock the door when he goes inside to take a leak.

** Predating Stormtroopers are the Clone Troopers. Despite the very low[[note]]Relative to the size of the war they're fighting - there may be millions of them but the Republic has millions of worlds to protect, so if they divided them up equally they might have enough men to give each world a garrison of one squad[[/note]] canon number of clones and several mentions in story of how tightly stretched they are, ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' has them doing everything from street patrol to prison guard duties.

** There is debate in many places about the degree to which this is the case for law enforcement. Using the US as an example, 20 years ago pistols were the most firepower that most patrol officers carried, with semiautomatic rifles at the station maybe. Since then military grade gear and SWAT teams have proliferated. [[note]]Depending on who you ask, the degree may be exaggerated; an "MRAP armoured military vehicle" is functionally an unarmed armored truck, and "40mm grenade launcher" sounds scary unless you know it's used only for launching tear gas.[[/note]] There are even laws that let police departments get military surplus for peanuts. On the other side of the argument, pistols are still the standard patrol weapon, with more less-lethal options available, possibly with shotguns and/or rifles carried in the trunk.

-->"License and registration, please."

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. When this happens it's a sign that the apparently innocuous business the protagonists are trying to break into this week is actually a BlackSite.