
Don’t support laws you are not willing to kill to enforce (2014) - necessity
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/05/dont-support-laws-you-are-not-willing-to-kill-to-enforce/
======
massysett
This is disingenuous. Few reasonable people would suggest that the police have
authority to kill because someone litters, has a broken tail light, or sells
single cigarettes in violation of New York law. Depending on your viewpoint
and the situation, killings occur because people resist the police, because
people run from the police, because the police are trigger-happy and biased,
or because the police are murderers. One might even think that it is
ridiculous to ban sales of single cigarettes. Even so, this piece suggests I
should not support laws banning littering unless I believe the police should
be authorized to kill litterers. This is ridiculous. Of course we can support
a law even if we believe that a violator should not be subjected to summary
execution.

~~~
bluejekyll
I disagree. The point is that by creating a law which you by extension are
asking the police to enforce, you are inherently increasing the number of
times that the police will negatively interact with people.

The cigarette tax is interesting because this exemplifies a corporate
entity/state which wants to protect its revenue at the expense of a person
lower on the ladder trying to address a simple market situation, it's not one
that I or you deal in, but this guy obviously did.

By making it illegal, the police must enforce the law. The guy then breaking
said law is faced with a hard choice when dealing with the police in that
situation, which is that he is going to be at a minimum fined or possibly
worse. For a cigarette, which all sane people would say, "seriously?"

Our goal should be to have police enforce laws that we care about, and laws
that actually matter. It reduces the chance for potential abuse of the law.
Remember that most poor people are forced to work and live in more public
areas, where richer people have more private property that shields potentially
the same or worse incursions of the law from the police.

~~~
tprynn
The discussion of cigarette sales/taxes is clearly a strawman. If you believe
that we shouldn't have laws unless we are willing to kill to enforce them, you
should be able to defend this argument against a law which the vast majority
of people will support. For example, I would not choose to kill someone for
driving drunk, but strongly support laws which ban drunk driving and remove
the ability to drive from convicted drunk drivers.

~~~
necessity
It is not the death penalty for drinking and driving that is on the table, but
the possibility of the offender being killed as a result of a confrontation
with the police over the act of drinking and driving. Engendering innocent
lives is a serious felony and I imagine most people would support the police
stopping the car with tire slashes and confronting the offender in case of
further resistance, even though he might be killed (which is not the
objective, but a possible consequence).

~~~
tprynn
Thanks for your clear argument. I was definitely arguing 'past' the parent,
and this helped me to see that. Won't hide my shame at completely missing the
point.

------
StillBored
I've been something like this for days.. Why are the police pulling people
over for busted tailights/etc? Isn't having a yearly car inspection regime
enough? How frequently do tail lights burn out, and is it that critical to
everyone's safety that it gets fixed as soon as cop sees it or can it wait for
a few months until the state inspection. Don't most cars have some kind of
indicator that a light is blown? Basically the vast majority interactions most
people have with the police are when they are acting like thugs/tax collectors
and enforcing fee's for minor infractions of laws that weren't even on the
books more than a couple dozen years ago and for the most part haven't done
anything to improve safety.

Basically, the police culture seems to focus on over-policing useless things
like traffic enforcement while under-policing dangerous parts of town with
beat cops.

~~~
wl
If you're alluding to the Philando Castile shooting, he wasn't pulled over
because of his tail lights, which were actually working[1]. Rather, the police
officer thought that Castile looked like a robbery suspect[2] and the tail
light thing was just a pretext.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3681591/That-
taillig...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3681591/That-taillight-
working-fine-Witness-rubbishes-police-claim-Philando-Castile-death-streamed-
Facebook-pulled-busted-light-car.html)

[2] [http://www.kare11.com/news/police-scanner-
audio-1/267042738](http://www.kare11.com/news/police-scanner-
audio-1/267042738)

~~~
jsprogrammer
Your #2 link says that the relevant police have not confirmed the authenticity
of the recording from an unnamed source..and the article was posted three days
ago and contains 9 spamvertisements.

~~~
wl
The #2 link seems to be the closest we have to the original source. It's a
news gathering operation run by the CBS broadcast television affiliate in the
MSP region where the events in question transpired. The person making the
scanner recording hasn't posted it anywhere that I know of. If you know of a
better source, I'll gladly change the link, but this is the source everyone
else is ultimately linking to.

As for the police not verifying the recording, that's not unusual. Police
don't tend to comment on pending investigations unless they need something
from the public. In any case, the shooter's attorney has largely confirmed the
information in the recording[1]. It could still be a fake, but if it is, it's
a good one based on information not publicly available until days later.

[1] [http://www.startribune.com/lawyer-castile-pulled-over-
becaus...](http://www.startribune.com/lawyer-castile-pulled-over-because-he-
matched-robbery-suspect/386221031/)

~~~
jsprogrammer
I'd think a news gathering operation would have their own recordings to check
and verify.

I don't see a quote from the attorney in support of the claim that the stop
was called in.

If the call was already broadcast, I don't see why it couldn't be confirmed.
Is this source the only one recording?

~~~
wl
I linked to that additional article as confirmation that the shooter thought
that Castile looked like a robbery suspect. While the article doesn't have any
direct quotes to that effect, it paraphrases him saying as much.

The claim that the shooter called in the stop before he made it is
unremarkable because that's standard practice. In fact, it'd be more unusual
if he hadn't called it in. Doubly so when stopping a suspected armed robber. A
big reason why officers call in every stop is so that if the stop goes
sideways and they are never heard from again, at least dispatch got the plate
so investigators know where to begin.

I'd wager most news operations use Radio Reference these days rather than
worry running all that gear and archiving all that audio themselves. Some of
the relevant streams were down that night[1], probably explaining why there
aren't other copies floating around.

[1] [http://forums.radioreference.com/broadcastify-live-audio-
lis...](http://forums.radioreference.com/broadcastify-live-audio-listener-
support/336321-missing-audio-archives.html)

~~~
jsprogrammer
I'd wager you can setup a scanner and more than a year of storage for <$100.
The total volume of the setup would be a very small cube that would just need
to be attached to an antenna.

There is really no excuse not to be doing it at this point. Especially when
third parties are proven unreliable.

------
sethrin
Police have become the threat that the Founders feared when they talked about
the dangers of a standing army. Either they need to be armed with non-lethal
weapons only, or they need to stand trial for each killing (severally and
collectively), or both.

------
jeffdavis
I'd like to see more coverage of the libertarian candidates this cycle.
Neither major party seems likely to fix this issue -- Republicans will dismiss
it and Democrats will pander and apply band-aids (all the while increasing the
scope of government).

And the libertarians this time around are serious candidates -- president and
VP nominees are both two-term governors. Pretty hard to ignore when the major
candidates are so bad.

~~~
hellothere999
Oh my! Two term governors! Well sign me up...

Gary Johnson is a neo-liberal to the core. To him everything comes down to how
much it costs.

He's anti-mandatory vaccinations.

He's all about FairTax which hit the poor harder than the rich. Screw people
that don't have rich parents.

He's anti net neutrality and believes incumbents should manage the network as
they see fit. Of course he opposes government intervention to keep the
internet "independent". Let's rely on network access providers, cause that's
working out well.

He's all about the free market and anti government meddling until either
argument get in his way. He says government should not subsidize or bailout
industry but hey it should support building more coal (pandering to coal
nation).

He supports the TPP, which is nothing but a gift to entrenched big business
and the erosion of other nations sovereignty.

He's a Constitutional "originalist", which is basically code word for "screw
letting people decide how to govern themselves, we're sticking to the flawed
work of some long dead white guys."

In short, he's just as vague when it comes to concrete solutions, big on
talking points, pro rich, anti poor, but worst of all driven by idealism
versus reality.

Typical politician. Nothing new to see there.

~~~
jeffdavis
Nothing you say is particularly radical.

I know many will disagree with his positions on some things, or maybe many
things. The point is that they are reasonable politicians, and especially when
the main candidates are so bad, deserve a fair chance in the media to have
their say.

------
Mao_Zedang
Before you start blaming racism and all such manner of things consider some
interesting statistics.

Other western countries have much lower police fatalities, being a police
officer in the US is way more dangerous than other western countries.

[http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-
data/year.htm...](http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-
data/year.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty)

[http://www.npm.org.au/honour-roll](http://www.npm.org.au/honour-roll)

I could not find a source but it would be nice to see a break down of \-
killed illegally \- killed by accident \- injuries \- gun \- knives \- etc

Broken down by country/per capita, I think we would find (my opinion as I
couldn't find the stats) that the US is abnormally high to its peers.

~~~
knucklesandwich
A little over 50% of officers killed in the past 10 years were killed by
accidents, mostly car accidents.

Feloniously Killed: [https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_1_leos_fk_region_geographic_division_and_state_2005-2014.xls)

Accidentally Killed: [https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_52_leos_ak_region_geographic_division_and_state_2005-2014.xls)

~~~
Mao_Zedang
Good link thanks for finding it, I would say that 50 officers killed on
purpose is even worse when compared to the other stats I linked. At face value
it appears to be 5x higher.

Interestingly look at the rate of injury as well especially from fire arms.

[https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/tabl...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_76_leos_asltd_type_of_weapon_and_percent_injured_2005-2014.xls)

~~~
knucklesandwich
In 2014, according to killedbypolice.net, the number of recorded killings by
the police was 1111 [1], which would mean you have about _21 times_ the odds
of being killed by police in a given interaction than they have of being
killed by you. I haven't found any statistics on assaults from the police, so
its hard to compare apples to apples there.

I'm not saying it's not more dangerous to be a police officer than the average
occupation (I think it goes without saying that we expect it to be a dangerous
job). But it's important to put these numbers in global terms as well. The
assault rate according to those stats was 9%, with a 28.3% injury rate from
assaults. To put that in perspective, assuming injury rate remains constant
(which doesn't appear to be the trend, it appears to be going down), that
means you have about a 39.7% chance of serving 20 years and ever receiving an
injury from a criminal. For a normal occupation that would be high, but for
the police that doesn't seem especially dangerous. Especially considering that
about 80% of those injuries are from "Personal Weapons" (aka, getting
punched).

Weather or not its an explanatory factor in a statistical sense, I don't know,
but personally I can't see how that justifies some of these incidents.

[1]
[http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html](http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014.html)

~~~
Mao_Zedang
~ the stats are much worse than that it suggests that one police officer is
murdered per week and 6 are injured by a firearm (PER DAY). To suggest that
those arent alarming rates and just part of the job is very ungenerous to
those we trust with keeping us safe from belligerents. Imagine if it was
someone in your family who was killed on duty. Sometimes "fuck the police"
goes too far, some of us actually like law and order.

~~~
mhuffman
There are nearly 1 million police officers -- these are not high numbers!

Certainly every individual one is a tragedy, and I wouldn't want it to be me,
but overall these are not alarming numbers, taken in context.

~~~
Mao_Zedang
Out of the 1208 people killed by police last year (2015) how many where
unjust? I am just wondering because, 50 in 1 million is 0.005% and 1208 in 320
million is 0.00037% so it would appear more police die per population (total
police) vs per population (total people) you are 10 times more likely to die
as a police officer than you are to die from a police officer.

~~~
mhuffman
More dangerous still are garbage collectors.[1]

What is your point exactly? My point is that being a police officer is not as
deadly of a job as they insinuate (note that most police officers die of heart
attacks and car accidents).

[1] [http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-
america/](http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/)

~~~
Mao_Zedang
My point is police die at the hands of the public more often than the public
dies at the hands of the police.

------
knucklesandwich
I don't see how this follows. Not all laws permit use of deadly force. And
it's not even the laws per se as much as the circumstances and criteria around
authorization of deadly force. I've been trying to learn about this lately,
and it seems as though the supreme court case Graham v. Connor [1] is heavily
implicated in the fact that very few of these police are convicted despite how
objectionable the circumstances have seemed.

As a side note, if you're interested in this type of thing, Radiolab has just
started an excellent podcast on supreme court cases called More Perfect [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._Connor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._Connor)

[2]
[http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolabmoreperfect](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolabmoreperfect)

~~~
vkou
Not all laws may permit the use of deadly force, but every encounter with the
police implicitly does.

The line between being pulled over for a minor infraction, and making an
officer fear for his life is a very blurry one.

~~~
knucklesandwich
Except that the implication here is that the laws precipitate the use of
lethal force. You may not be guilty (or suspected to be guilty) of anything in
the eyes of the law and face the prospect of lethal force, considering police
have investigatory powers. The laws aren't the problem here (I think there are
problems with the laws and penalties in other regards, but that's a separate
matter), its the wide berth we give to police to enact deadly force.

~~~
pixl97
>Except that the implication here is that the laws precipitate the use of
lethal forc

Which they do by proxy.

Get a simple ticket and don't pay it or show up for court and it can become a
bench warrant in which the cops can go arrest you. Serving warrants is a
dangerous event, as in some percentage of the time the served fight back
violently.

The only power police have is the power of violence.

------
ahoy
Lots of countries manage to have all sorts of regulations and very few
killings by police. I don't think the premise of this essay is valid.

~~~
dleslie
In many such countries the police are not nearly as militarized.

~~~
dragonwriter
So, instead of "don't support laws you aren't willing to kill to have
enforced", perhaps, "don't support militarized police" would be the better
recommendation.

Since, after all, that's the root of the problem.

~~~
jessaustin
Which problem do you expect to be fixed first? Every new crime can be fought
right in the legislature here and now. Who can demilitarize the police?

[EDIT:] Are police unions, bar associations, and armaments manufacturers just
going to sit out the session in which you get your miraculous "just do the
right thing ok cops?" law passed? I can't believe that someone as
knowledgeable as yourself really thinks that way...

~~~
dragonwriter
> Which problem do you expect to be fixed first?

Demilitarizing the police takes building a coalition for a single, focused,
legislative action. Preventing all new, and eliminating all existing,
legislation that you aren't willing to have the state kill to enforce requires
a lot more.

So, I'd say that demilitarizing the police is _a lot_ easier.

> Every new crime can be fought right in the legislature here and now. Who can
> demilitarize the police?

Demilitarizing the police can be fought right in the legislature, here and
now, too.

EDIT (to respond to yours):

> [EDIT:] Are police unions, bar associations, and armaments manufacturers
> just going to sit out the session in which you get your miraculous "just do
> the right thing ok cops?" law passed?

I don't see bar associations particularly likely to oppose demilitarizing
police; OTOH, police unions are often opponents of efforts to decriminalize
minor offenses that are useful as pretexts (and often are sponsors of new
criminalization of this type.) So, is it easier to build a coalition to beat
them on _one_ point, or _thousands_?

~~~
jessaustin
Actually lawyers like to work, so as a whole they like lots of complicated
awful laws to keep the courts crowded all the time. Think a little more deeply
about how special interests function, however. The NRA _really cares_ about
gun control, and few others do, so they get their way. The teachers' unions
_really care_ about public education policy, and few others do, so they get
their way. Likewise, those who profit from our awful "justice" system _really_
like that profit, so any giant attempt to destroy their entire world will get
demolished. We may never know who invented this "one wonderful law will save
us" meme, but one doubts he worked on the side of good. We've got to start by
eating around the margins of the problem.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Actually lawyers like to work, so as a whole they like lots of complicated
> awful laws to keep the courts crowded all the time.

That's a popular stereotype, but -- especially in any way relevant to the kind
of criminal offenses at issue in this discussion -- its not borne out at all,
AFAICT, by the actual history of bar association lobbying.

------
SilasX
This looks to be a variant of the point about applying infinities to human
lives in public policy.

Basically, a tiny non-zero chance of death still means a finite numbers of
lives killed by the policy. And any police encounter has some tiny chance of
escalating to lethal force by either side.

But the obvious implication, to me, is "hey, everything has a cost in lives,
that shouldn't be a dealbreaker". However, the author uses it in a way that
implies that it's some useful heuristic for which laws are good, rather than a
trivial point about the ever-present risk of death.

(I expected it to be a point about how, if you want to enforce any law, you
have to apply increasing escalation against those who resist it. Refusal to
comply -> arrest; resistance of arrest -> force; resistance of force -> death)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Resistance of force should only result in death if there is no other option;
that is, if you resist it very well. In most cases, it should just result in
enough force that you are no longer able to resist.

------
rpiwetz
"But it is also true that police abuses are far more likely to victimize poor
African-Americans and other politically weak groups." -Did the author provide
any evidence for this statement?

------
randyrand
>Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and
puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will
of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

Really seems like they are missing the obvious answer:

IF you don't want to die, don't resist police orders. Do your resistance in
the courts.

~~~
jessaustin
Are you talking about our present reality, or perhaps about some alternate
universe in which good lawyers are inexpensive?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
In our present reality, if you try to resist the police using physical force
rather than the courts, it may not matter to you if good lawyers are free. You
may not make it far enough to hire one, _because trying to get physical with
the cops is a mind-blowingly stupid idea!_ _Don 't do it._

If you have to show up in court with a bad lawyer - or even representing
yourself - do that rather than trying to fight the police.

~~~
mikestew
_If you have to show up in court_

Statistically, there's over a 90% chance you'll never see a court date.
Because, see, if you don't sign this plea deal we'll just make shit up to pile
into the existing charges. Maybe your day in court will let you dodge that
triple life sentence, or maybe you'd rather just cop guilty and take the 90
days.

------
JulianMorrison
But what if they completely resisted the law to the point of shooting back?
Well then it's the shooting back that will get them killed. There is a rather
short list of things the police ought to be shooting at, and they all boil
down to endangering life. Going on a gun rampage. Going on a knife rampage.
Holding hostages.

Selling cigarettes is not on that list and the only reason that cops get away
with it, is a culture of fear and egregious defensive overreaction, which
treats unarmed black men as threats equivalent or worse than a white guy with
a pistol drawn.

~~~
mseebach
Shooting _back_? So law enforcement shot first?

------
leepowers
The article is mis-titled and mis-leading, and detracts from the core
principle. Any law, no matter how minor, can be escalated by a resisting
citizen (or a bad cop) into a bigger, more violent situation.

After a fair reading of the article the real argument goes something like
this:

1) The sheer number of laws means every citizen is in violation on a regular
basis. Especially for trivial things like rolling through a stop sign, selling
loose cigarettes, changing lanes without a signal, etc.

2) Every violation is an opportunity for a police encounter. A population that
has only 10 laws to obey will have lower encounter rate than a population that
has 1000.

3) Each police encounter has a non-zero chance of resulting in violence. Be it
a citizen resisting and the cops responding with violence. Or in a cop making
a fatal mistake, or a cop overreacting to a situation. There is some
likelihood of a violent outcome.

4) Improved officer training and tactics alone are a limited way to lower the
per-encounter violence rate. Oversight and accountability are difficult to
implement due to various institutional and political barriers.

5) A better, safer, long-term solution is to reduce the total number of
encounters by reducing the total number of laws a citizen is required to obey.
Fewer encounters mean fewer opportunities for violence.

My main objection to this argument is that #5 would be as difficult to
implement as #4. Paring down the number of laws will take a lot of political
will and capital. Changing the institutions of policing and prosecution will
take just as much political will to change. We should probably do both.

------
isleyaardvark
Are people willing to kill to enforce laws against petty theft or should we
only make theft illegal above a certain dollar amount?

~~~
pixl97
No, all theft should be illegal, otherwise that will just allow someone to
abuse the system by stealing small amounts multiple times.

And no one is killing to enforce laws against petty theft, no one is killing
to enforce laws against almost any infraction.

The use of deadly force comes in effect when you have a portion of the
population willing to use violence against cops, which makes cops very nervous
that they will 'get the winning lottery ticket' next stop and overusing force
back.

------
AnimalMuppet
I think a big part of the problem is that people want to be able to break some
laws (the ones that "are wrong" or "shouldn't apply to me", or just the ones
that they want to), and suffer no consequences for doing so. And then, when
the police try to enforce some consequences, the people feel like they (the
police) shouldn't do that, are wrong to do that, and therefore they (the
people) are right to try to defeat the police, either by running away or by
direct attack.

------
tim333
There are lots of ways to enforce laws without using armed police. In the UK
you have to take your car for annual inspections which covers tail lights,
speeding and the like get caught by cameras, parking is covered by traffic
wardens writing tickets with no guns or arrests involved, non payment of tax
results in fines. Personal drug use is mostly ignored. You only really need
arrests for things like theft or assault.

------
lolc
I'd want to see how the law "don't shoot after fleeing suspects unless they
pose an immediate threat to others" will need deadly force to be effective.
The normal way laws are enforced is by threatening to remove privileges.

In my opinion the discussion should be around the way the police force
interacts with people. If some laws get abolished in the process, that's
probably good.

------
niftich
This is silly. Breaking laws comes with penalties, which are determined by the
courts. There is nothing that inherently states that lawbreakers must be
forcibly moved to a government-controlled site; furthermore there's nothing
that says people who try to resist arrest should be met with lethal force.

~~~
danbruc
You have to at least establish the identity of the person you want to bring to
court. This comes with the possibility that the person might resist and there
you go - either you give up and let the person walk away without knowing who
he was or you have to use some kind of force.

And there is no way around that - rules and laws are just words on paper,
ultimately you always have to use force in one way or another if someone does
not voluntarily honor the words, otherwise they will only be words on paper
and nothing more.

~~~
niftich
You can penalize 'resisting arrest' in other ways than trying to arrest. You
can fine them, or revoke licenses, or apply some other penalty that isn't
based around jail time -- for which you'd have to actually perform the arrest.

~~~
danbruc
How do you fine someone without knowing the identity? What do you do if they
don't pay the fine? What if they continue doing what they are no longer
allowed to do without the license?

There are certainly cases where you can punish someone without any cooperation
on their side - like no longer giving them some benefits or freezing a bank
account - but those scenarios are really far from covering all possible
scenarios and you still have to determine the identity at the very least.

------
devy

        Carter correctly points out that the massive growth of
        criminal and regulatory law means that almost anyone can 
        potentially end up in the same situation as Eric Garner.
    

So does Carter and author suggest reducing the number of laws? Or should we
just take it that law enforcement abusing power causing deaths are inevitable?

~~~
latch
Quoting the article, quoting Carter:

    
    
        Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, 
        and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right.
    

And in the same paragraph:

    
    
        But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for
        official violence to get out of hand.

~~~
devy
Right below that quote, it reads:

    
    
         the scope of government regulation has grown so great 
    

The unfortunately reality is laws are only growing NOT reducing.

------
hyperion2010
Draco and Hamurabi knew what they were doing.

------
strictnein
(2014)

------
stanfordkid
lol parking tickets ?

------
nbb
Some of the most idiotic reasoning I've read in a long time.

