Unless, as you point out, the military doesn't want you to see what they're doing, in which case your safety is unimportant.

It's funny - in the same way a fish doesn't realize it lives in water, I never realized that I lived in a profoundly militarized country until I left the United States for Europe.

Living in New York City, every few months or so there would be some sort of terrorism alert and you'd see young men in ridiculous camouflage and big nasty automatic weapons lolling insolently in front of Port Authority or whatever. You just got used to it - but now I haven't seen an unholstered weapon since I left the United States, almost five years ago.