Homemade Tanks Don't Smash Buildings, People Smash Buildings

The big news in Colorado is about one man's rampage in an armored bulldozer:

A muffler shop owner who plowed a makeshift armored bulldozer into several buildings after a dispute with city officials was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after a SWAT team cut their way into the machine early Saturday, authorities said.

[. . .] Heemeyer plowed the armor-plated bulldozer into the town hall, a former mayor's home and at least five other buildings Friday before the machine ground to a halt in the wreckage of a warehouse.

OK, but somebody doesn't make their own tank over nothing, there must have been a good reason, right?

City officials said he was angry over a zoning dispute and fines for city code violations at his business in the town about 50 miles west of Denver.

Oh, sure that explains it. But how good could a homemade tank be, anyway? We pay billions to defense contractors to make real tanks, which proves that a tank some guy made in his garage in his spare time couldn't be very useful, right?

Authorities detonated three explosions and fired at least 200 rounds against the heavy steel plates welded to the bulldozer, which looked like an upside down Dumpster. After the third explosion failed, officials used a cutting torch to open the square-foot hole early Saturday, county Emergency Management Director Jim Holahan said.

[. . .] Undersheriff Glen Trainor said the dozer's armor plates consisted of two sheets of half-inch steel with a layer of concrete between them.

[. . .] One officer, later identified as Trainor, was perched on top, firing shot after shot into the top and once dropping an explosive down the exhaust pipe. "He just kept shooting," Moore said. "The dozer was still going. He threw what looked like a flash-bang down the exhaust. It didn't do a thing."

OK, here's the problem: this guy has seriously upped the ante in the urban arms race. Until recently, we honest citizens only needed guns to defend our homes and loved ones against armed criminals. But now, it seems, we need our own tanks just to keep up. This will be quite an expense, but it's the least we can do for the common good. I can't wait until the next armored-bulldozer-driving kook goes on a rampage, only to be engaged by the Neighborhood Watch Tank Platoon and blown to smithereens. That will definitely keep me entertained, at least until we all get Mechs.