On Thu, May 22, 1997 at 09:04:15PM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
Hi,
It occured to me that if the police have no civil liberties extending beyond that of a citizen and citizens are not legaly permitted access to military hardware then neither should the police. [...] If a police officer can buy body armor and automatic weapons for self defence then so can a citizen.
[...]
Do police have any civil rights not endowed to a individual citizen?
No. But on the job, doing their state assigned duties, they have access to instrumentalities not available to private citizens or off-duty police. "On" and "off" duty may sometimes be a little fuzzy in practice, but the principle is clear. It isn't a big deal, and it's not a matter of civil rights. A license to practice medicine gives you the ability to prescribe morphine. A certain class of drivers license lets you drive a school bus full of children. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html