Paramilitary regulatory agencies.....Yeah, the founding fathers wanted that.

If regulatory agencies really need armed agents, shouldn't they know how to handle a gun?

IRS has more negligent discharges than lawful uses of firearms

This is pretty bad. More negligent discharges than justifiable discharges in the line of duty. It sort of makes you wonder why we even have armed IRS agents in the first place. And while we ponder that, why do the EPA, Department of Education, Social Security Administration and probably over half of federal government agencies have armed agents? It might be that we have literally millions of pages of federal laws, regulations and directives, the violation of which might bring these well-trained federal gunslingers to come pounding on your front door.
There have been too many instances where heavily armed federal agents have run roughshod over private citizens for relatively minor, non-violent infractions. Just in the last couple of years we have seen innocent men, women and even children forcibly removed from their homes, proned out and cuffed on the street for issues like non-payment of student loans, violating foreign lobster packaging rules and other similarly minor issues that could have been addressed with a letter or a visit by a single unarmed agent. Why were heavily armed federal agents in raid gear required to take down the Gibson Guitar Company? Were these dangerous mobsters, vicious narco-trafficantes or violent outlaw bikers? No. Why anybody would think that you need heavily armed agents to take down a bunch of luthiers who have committed no violent crime, are not armed and would not be expected to put up a fight is beyond justification. These heavy-handed, macho displays of armed authority is what caused the Branch Davidian catastrophe. The BATF could have taken David Koresh into custody during any of his trips into town, but, instead, their SWAT team got a hard on at the opportunity to actually go out and use all their fancy guns. That mentality caused four agents to be killed and eventually brought about the deaths of many of the Davidians. Use of force should be a last resort for any government. When governments have the power to coerce their citizens they will all to frequently find some sort of justification to use that power.
And while we are on this topic, why is the DHS buying up hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo? Why do they need MRAP's and drones? Why does the IRS need to be equipped with AR-15's? Why do so many federal agencies need their own SWAT teams? The federal bureaucracy is becoming militarized. This is the direct result of the enormous growth in size, reach and power of the federal government. This is why our founding fathers wanted limited government. Than knew that the larger and more powerful the government becomes the more likely it will use that power against the wishes of the people. The government now exists to maintain itself. It is not serving the people; it serves itself, at the expense of the people. If the IRS was a much smaller agency with only the budget and manpower to fulfill its basic functions, you wouldn't see them wasting money on their own SWAT team. Why would the EPA have a SWAT team if it did not have more money and power than it had mission. The militarization of the bureaucracy is a symptom of government excess and overreach. It is time that we should stop fearing the government and make it understand that it works for us; not the other way around.