I totally agree. Pulling a gun on a cop for a routine traffic stop is definitely going to make the situation better.
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Not disagreeing with you here, just adding one more layer to the knowledge equation.
ā¦when they know that we know we canāt get justice laterā¦
expansion bolded
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There is nothing at all reasonable about being stopped and questioned while going about your business (in this case driving on a public road) in a manner that is legal and not otherwise arousing suspicion.
I find the idea that armed agents of the government can arbitrarily interfere with your freedom to be very disturbing, and even more so, that so many citizens apparently donāt see a problem with this.
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Police deal with criminals. Everything in their minds is colored by ādanger, dangerā and the perception that people are scumbags hiding things. I understand that deciphering suspicious behavior is part of the job and that the line of work can be perilous. But at the same time, their reactions and behavior are also the result of persistent conditioning from a higher exposure to said criminals. It changes how they view society on a whole. Itās like the family doctor who sees a series of symptoms and prescribes the same drug for all his patients, assuming a certain diagnosis, because it is most prevalent in his office. The power differential is at play as well, obviously.
The police should be required to rotate outside of traffic stops and investigations and be assigned some type of community service involvement where some of the cynicism and Pavlovian reward system and self fulfilling prophesies of detecting criminal behavior can be palate cleansed, but also where their position of authority can be tempered.
Sadly, the government is not so much interested in making things better, all around, for the citizenry.
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Hey, Boing Boing Overlords- instead of constantly posting these videos, could you get a real lawyer to come in and give a guest editorial that clarifies what the ACTUAL laws are, federal and state-wide, about this shit? Every comment on here offers āIANALā suggestions of what they think the law might be. This is not at all helpful to anyone. If and when I get pulled over for some stupid DUI checkpoint, I would like to know exactly what I can and canāt say, demand, refuse. I canāt afford to hire a lawyer for a few hours just to pick his brain, but I bet you guys can get one to speak to all of us. PRETTY PLEASE???
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The beauty of the tubes is that that stuff is all already out there, whilst in here, we have awesome commenters like @emo_pinata posting links like this:
http://www.motorists.org/dui/roadblock
IANAL
Good point.
NO.
(More word added because being succinct isnāt good enough for discussion.)
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āI think a growing problem is people being unreasonable to cops because they can.ā
You should listen to the audio of the guy pressing his āLife Alertā thing and telling the operator he needs help because the police are trying to break down his door. They later shot him to death, a 60+ year old Marine vet who had accidentally triggered his Life Alert earlier and couldnāt convince the police that he didnāt need their help.
You should listen to the 2 mothers interviewed on Democracy Now a few weeks ago who had called for ambulances or police to help their supposedly suicidal sons, both cases ending with the sons shot to death.
There may be some people acting a fool with police and getting away with it, but there is definitely a bigger problem with cops killing innocent citizens and getting away with it. If there is a chilling effect on cops, itās not apparent from some of these police who get away with murder.
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Given the militarization of police, āthe means with which to combat a tyrannical domestic military forceā would mean citizen SWAT teams, active insurgency. Youāre not just disagreeing with āthe anti-gun lobby,ā but the NRA and almost everyone in the US.
Get used to it, citizen. The police are becoming ever more militarized and they are armed with laws from the āwar on drugsā to impose on and infringe on your rights. Hell - in some states a āsmellā is enough for a search. How do you prove a smell? NYC - melting pot of the world and bastion of liberal thinking - has āstop and friskā engrained into their policies. Cops risk demotion or less favorable jobs if they donāt do enough of them.
Everyday the āus vs themā attitude increases. I want to try to ālikeā cops - but you see so much blatant abuse it is getting harder.
Remember - To Serve and Protect - only they are under no legal obligation to protect you. So the question is who do they serve?
ETA:
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If almost everyone thinks they donāt live in a police state where they can be arrested, beaten, maced, tasered, raped, and even killed without repercussion as long as their attacker is wearing a badge then Iām OK with disagreeing with almost everyone.
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Wish you read the next sentence.
I donāt know if that restores my faith. Itās more like the cop is pissed off that the kid knows his rights and is innocent.
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Jesus Christ, thatās a pretty disturbing clip. I wish there were some proof that it were all completely real, but I guess I have no reason to think it might not be.
What a shame that I have no problem believing it.
Yes, in threads on music I comment on music, or the artist. In threads on indie comics I comment on how much these artists mean to me. In a thread about overreaching police should I comment about my choice of coffee vs tea this morning?
Who the hell are you to post a critique of my posting and add nothing thatās on point to this thread?
I donāt advocate pulling a gun on a cop. I advocate an armed, community based response to policing practices. Not one guy pulling a gun, 10+ armed community members standing a few yards away from that checkpoint lending their oversight. Itās even worse, I know 
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I would love to get the tap from BB to talk about or edit legal blog posts? Failing that, we could talk about stuff in the comments, if there is anything you would like to bounce around in a general/non fact-specific kind of a way.
A K9 unit at a checkpoint? That sounds like a drug checkpoint, which was ruled as illegal by the Supreme Court.
Nah, the dog was sniffing for crime.
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