I really wish I could sit on one of these decision meetings just so I could understand how the sausage is made. There's an entire class of people out there running the world yet operating in their own universe completely removed from the consensus reality we live in.
I mean, we could structure our society so that everything wasn't arbitrarily gated but that would be gasp socialism.
Also, Telegram and Signal are already open and can be bridged from anything to anything so yeah, we should force Messenger and Imessage to accept, at a minimum, bridging as well.
And importantly, as a cop, you're allowed to buy off-roster (modern) handguns and then turn around and sell them to the public at a profit. You have to be slightly careful because the ATF doesn't like non dealers buying and selling tons of guns, but it's a huge racket where cops will make a few thousand dollars a year selling modern/desirable guns to the pubilc (through FFLs).
It's pretty eye opening to watch every bill pushed through in the name of firearm safety turning out to have massive exemptions for off duty and retired cops. They're such a powerful political force that it's outright expected they should have a disproportionate ability to deliver force even after they're retired.
"Ok we have this cash cow..."
"Shoot it"
"But..."
"Shoot it, the cow accepted an open license"
"That doesn't make any..."
"I don't care, shoot the cow"