Kieran Healy

Preemptive Policing

Via TalkLeft again (great site, that), the laugh-or-you’d-cry story of Virginia police who, presumably inspired by their Government’s foreign policy, were preemptively arresting people for being drunk in a bar, on the principle that they might be about to go out and be disorderly, drive home, or gas their own people in an alcohol-fueled rage. (Take your pick.) Former Congreeman Bob Barr said

This actually is a frightening scenario that one hopes is nipped in the bud.

“But we were nipping people ‘in the Bud’,” a spokesperson for the Virginia police responded.

OK, two lame puns in a row. No more of that today.

Not that I agree with the Police tactics in this case, but to be fair to the Cops, four of the nine arrested were actually behind the wheel of their car when they were arrested. The others were cited for drunk and disorderly conduct. The cops (I guess raided is the right word) 20 bars, with no arrests at 17 of the 20. I still think the tactics are stupid, but the facts should be made available for people to make their own judgements. The program is also a holiday season only type.

By that logic, the cops should sit outside the gas station to preempt those who might be gassing up their cars to drive to a bar.

I agree with the InstaPundit: this posting is a compelling argument for strict pun control.

Use a pun, go to Yale.

Weren’t the people taking a nip of Bud?

How can you blame the police? They’re just protecting the public from those pre-criminals all hopped up on bud.

Normally, I am all over stuff like this, but this time…

The only thing the police did wrong was… enforce a law that’s not enforced often enough.

You may argue that public drunkeness should not be a crime. You may argue that bars (and presumably their parking lots) should not be considered public places in relation to public drunkeness. You may even argue that the police have better things to do with their time.

BUT

The people who were arrested were drunk in public. That is against the law. The police arrested them. They went to jail.

The only real argument that come close to standing up would be disproportionate enforcement (only enofrcing the law on certain people), but even then, you’d really need some good evidence – from what I can tell, they didn’t single out any one group (other than people who attend bars, but they aren’t a recognized minority).

In short – sheese, people. Have you all suddenly become anarchists or something?

Puns don’t annoy people; people annoy people.

Hugh Hewitt did a story on this about a month ago. His nephew was one of the first ones arrested. The nephew is 6’3 and was on his second beer when they took him outside, arrested him and demanded a couple of hundred dollars. This isn’t about public safety, it’s about “revenue enhancement” – just like the red light cameras.

I wonder how much the cops in VA charge for not killing your dog?

The aggressive stance of the Pentagon controlled Whitehouse emboldens our nation’s “Finest”. Once these gestapo tactics would have been considered criminal but today, who needs probable cause when the authorities can act with impunity.

The time has to come to put an end to this madness. The future is at stake!

Let’s be honest… the only way to crack down on drunken drivers is to go straight to the source… before those drunks got to that bar they were indoctrinated by advertisements to think that drinking beer is a good thing… before they were indoctrinated they were born… so the only logical way to stop all of this madness is to prevent all births… now… before another generation is born, raised, indoctrinated into liking beer drinking which could lead to the possibility that they might drive drunk.

That’s where responsible “choice” starts!

“No matter how bad puns may be, they could be verse”

Instead of invading Iraq, we could send them some of this PUNIshment.