Cool stuff. Check it out. Got me thinkin.
The worst thing that could happen to our civil liberties?
A rampaging terrist squad on a wilding spree in an area that doesn't have an MRAP to respond to em. After the attack, someone notes in the press that they didn't have that MRAP because of concerns over over-militarization. The public's percieved security need will spin 180 degrees, and cops will universally patrol in up armored vehicles from then on out, when that outcry is peeled to the heavens.
We've been working on our 2nd Amendment response and argument for decades. After a horrific spree when the opposition goes, "We should ban all ARs because of that!" we have a practiced reply on why that is a bad idea.
We aren't ready to respond to a spree where the opposition, after, goes, "All cops should have turret mounted armored vehicles"
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You know why cops hate the idea of more cameras monitoring what they do? Well a big part of it is Adam 12. Yes, the TV show. I knew neighborhood cops in the 70s and 80s that were unimpressed with cop shows. And Adam 12 was high on the list. But the kind of cop portrayed on that show is in the DNA of American culture. And that cop is almost impossible to live up to. In the language department alone. Cops cuss more in the first minutes of a shift than even a cross word was uttered in the whole series. Reed and Malloy were angels and set the bar impossibly high for expected behavior.
And that's hesitation to adopt. Once adopted, it's a different story.
Adam 12 was fake. Police were never like that, especially in large cities like Los Angeles, and they'd be virtually ineffective if they were like that.
ReplyDeleteThat said, today's police are, as a whole, much closer to that fictional ideal than they ever have been before, and that's why so many of today's criminals are so much bolder. Be careful what you wish for.