Clubs, Machetes, and Spears

Watching the long, low spread of color becoming crimson just above the distant tree tops and hold back the night as they sat in the porch-swing that evening in the small southern town, the grandmother asked her grandson, "Whata you wanna be when you grow up?"
"A policeman," he said.
"A policeman has to think fast.  Can  you think fast?"
"Sho'," the boy said.
"How old are you now?"
"Nine."
"Ever been in any fights?"
"Sho' -- but I whupped 'em."
"Okay, let's say you a policeman and you and some mo' police are facing a lot of men who're armed with bricks, clubs, machetes, and spears -- and maybe some guns you can't see.  And these men are looking wild-eyed and crazy, screaming and hollering and jumping all around threatening y'all like a bunch of illiterate primitives -- what do you do?"
"I'd shoot 'em."
"But millions of people all over the world will cry crocodile tears and accuse you and the other policemen of shooting innocent, unarmed men."
"But they was armed and --"
"And the people will say that those men were poor and helpless and had come to protest in peace . . ."
"Then why did they come with them clubs, and machetes and spears, grandma?"