Jack-booted thugs

This is really incredible. It makes me sick.

http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958

Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.

Police would never abuse their power like this if there were a good chance that their prey was armed. The monopoly on force held by the state is what permits things like this to happen.

Let me repeat: if the police knew everyone were armed, this situation never would have occurred in the first place! Without a monopoly on force, the police simply wouldn't taser someone who is acting non-violently, because they would know that they wouldn't just be held to account for their behavior with a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back by their buddy the Chief of Police, but potentially by every individual in that room, with deadly force.

The incentives around thuggish behavior would be completely different in a world in which everyone were armed. I buy into Robert Heinlein's quote that "an armed society is a polite society": when some group becomes impolite as a result of a monopoly on force, it is imperative for all who believe in liberty to do something to bring them back into line; this is especially true when the misbehaving group comprises the very people we supposedly trust to protect us from the thugs.