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They're forming a Posse.
Sounds like a little Aluminum Christmas Trees here too: This was actually a pretty standard practice in a lot of places in the US up until the early 1900's- a given town would generally just have a Sheriff and maybe one or two permanent deputies if it was a very large town; the rest of the force consisted of "Who's sober and probably won't shoot themselves in the foot?". A number of states still technically allow it.
Edited by Scorpion451
Is there a trope for the situation where a Joe Average who gets caught up in some criminal plot winds up being handed a weapon by a law enforcement type despite being grossly unqualified? Was watching The Silver Streak and at some point the Feds just give Gene Wilder a gun and ammo and bring him to a hostage situation.