NationStates Jolt Archive

Every once in a while I'll be speaking with one of my non-libertarian friends about why too many laws are a bad thing and the same question will be posed to me: well, if you aren't doing anything illegal, why should you be worried? Aside from the philosophical probelms I might have with such a question, it is hard to explain why the enforcement of laws against consensual crimes hurts me in a real way. My usual argument is that giving the police the too much authority to investigate and arrest will lead to them making mistakes and abusing their power. Thats generally about the time in the argument when my friends point out that I'm a crazy libertarian.

Since 1985 there have been fourty innocent Americans killed by police during SWAT raids for which they were not the target. That is one American murdered every six months. There have been 143 SWAT raids on completely innocent suspects(generally the result of a bad tip or a wrong address) that have been reported by major news sources since 1985. Thats is in the neighborhood of one illegal raid every ten days. The vast majority of these raids are conducted to combat the illegal drug or gambling trade...

You can see visual representations of these statists(along with sourced explainations of each individual incident) here: http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

You can read the entire paper against the proliferation of paramilitary training and tactics for police here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

Every once in a while I'll be speaking with one of my non-libertarian friends about why too many laws are a bad thing and the same question will be posed to me: well, if you aren't doing anything illegal, why should you be worried? Aside from the philosophical probelms I might have with such a question, it is hard to explain why the enforcement of laws against consensual crimes hurts me in a real way. My usual argument is that giving the police the too much authority to investigate and arrest will lead to them making mistakes and abusing their power. Thats generally about the time in the argument when my friends point out that I'm a crazy libertarian.

Since 1985 there have been fourty innocent Americans killed by police during SWAT raids for which they were not the target. That is one American murdered every six months. There have been 143 SWAT raids on completely innocent suspects(generally the result of a bad tip or a wrong address) that have been reported by major news sources since 1985. Thats is in the neighborhood of one illegal raid every ten days. The vast majority of these raids are conducted to combat the illegal drug or gambling trade...

You can see visual representations of these statists(along with sourced explainations of each individual incident) here: http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

You can read the entire paper against the proliferation of paramilitary training and tactics for police here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476
Accidents happen, if a SWAT officer sees you reach for an unseen item then he will most likely shoot you. many officers have died or been wounded by suspects carrying a concealed weapon.
When the police get a tip they can't just send out one or two officers because that suspect might be armed and dangerous. Just goes to say that one must never bear false witness. It's a commandment for a reason.

Every once in a while I'll be speaking with one of my non-libertarian friends about why too many laws are a bad thing and the same question will be posed to me: well, if you aren't doing anything illegal, why should you be worried? Aside from the philosophical probelms I might have with such a question, it is hard to explain why the enforcement of laws against consensual crimes hurts me in a real way. My usual argument is that giving the police the too much authority to investigate and arrest will lead to them making mistakes and abusing their power. Thats generally about the time in the argument when my friends point out that I'm a crazy libertarian.

Since 1985 there have been fourty innocent Americans killed by police during SWAT raids for which they were not the target. That is one American murdered every six months. There have been 143 SWAT raids on completely innocent suspects(generally the result of a bad tip or a wrong address) that have been reported by major news sources since 1985. Thats is in the neighborhood of one illegal raid every ten days. The vast majority of these raids are conducted to combat the illegal drug or gambling trade...

You can see visual representations of these statists(along with sourced explainations of each individual incident) here: http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

You can read the entire paper against the proliferation of paramilitary training and tactics for police here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

I agree. There is also the argument that unenforceable law damages the entire body of law, reducing people's respect for the law and for the institutions of law enforcement.

I agree. There is also the argument that unenforceable law damages the entire body of law, reducing people's respect for the law and for the institutions of law enforcement.

Besides that, the fact that the police have no obligation whatsoever to enforce the law, decided by SCOTUS, and that the people have no recourse when they don't, really reduces the trust in them.

Accidents happen, if a SWAT officer sees you reach for an unseen item then he will most likely shoot you. many officers have died or been wounded by suspects carrying a concealed weapon.
When the police get a tip they can't just send out one or two officers because that suspect might be armed and dangerous. Just goes to say that one must never bear false witness. It's a commandment for a reason.

If only that were the case. See, the problem here is that many jurisdictions use SWAT teams to serve any narcotics warrant. On top of that, they often use no-knock warrants. Its three in the morning and someone with a gun kicks in your door, what do you do?

I've said it time and again, if officers want to reduce risks they should consider not mechanically escalating every situation into a violent conflict.

Oh, and if you think that people who get killed during these raids usually do something to get themselves shot, I'd advise you to run the name Sal Culosi through a search engine. He was a dentist who gambled on college sports with his friends. He had no criminal record, no record of violence, and was not known to carry a weapon. A badly trained SWAT team was deployed to arrest him on a gambling warrant because the jurisdiction he lived in served all warrants with a SWAT team. He was arrested, handcuffed, placed face down on the ground, then shot in the back on accident because the officer in question was unfamiliar with the military weapon issued to him and left his finger on the trigged when he wasn't planning on shooting anything. Care to guess if charges were filed? I can't help but think that Mr. Culosi would be alive today if a couple of detectives with .38s in their pockets had stopped him instead of a bunch of jags playing soldier and armed with machine guns.