First, your citing of that ridiculous figure about US troops firing 250,000 rounds per insurgent killed. Because the authors of that article didn't account for the fact that the vast majority of rounds fired by the US Military during that period were fired stateside, in training. By assuming every round purchased during this period was fired in combat in Iraq both you and the author of that piece undermine your credibility.
Second, your idea that cops shouldn't go after school shooters with a rifle is ridiculous. A rifle, or actually a carbine, is the most effective and preferred weapon for an active shooter response. Hell yes cops should go after a school shooter with the most effective, easist to use weapons available. And they should do it without delay or hesitation- first 2-4 officers on scene should immediately move in as a team and confront the shooter as quickly and aggressively as possible. To claim it is foolish shows you have have done any sort of training at all on active shooter response.
Over penetration? Not an issue if you buy proper ammunition. That is one reason why my department allowed us to buy an AR if we wanted it but only allowed us to use ammunition they certified and provided. In reality properly made fragile or fragmenting ammunition from an AR-15 will have less lethal penetration through walls than either the pistol ammo of buckshot. In fact we carried 4 magazines of the fragile ammo and only two of the standard FMJ, with an SOP that FMJ only came out in specific circumstances. The .40 rounds we carried would go through many layers of drywall, and multiple cinder blocks in range demonstrations. The .223 frangible rounds we carried would go through one block or piece of drywall but by the time it exited would be in multiple pieces and tumbling so that the fragments didn't have enough energy left to go through much else and usually were stopped by the second layer of drywall. The fragments might hurt a person, but are very unlikely to be lethal at that point. And it still would penetrate soft body armor better than buckshot or a pistol.
You cite dropping violent crime as evidence that these rifles are not needed. Yet you fail to consider that most departments already have these kinds of rifles- so maybe part of the cause of falling crime is the new adaptation of better tools by departments. That argument can go both ways.
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