I’ve known some law enforcement officers. Many of them are military veterans and thus tend to have pretty thick skin. When a miscreant assaults them or puts them in danger they are liable to react aggressively, as they legitimately should. But when some bum calls them a name or otherwise disrespects them in a non physical manner, most of these men and women have enough self discipline not to take the bait, especially in this political environment. The small number of badged hotheads who lose their cool give the bums exactly what they want and probably don’t have enough self control to be cops in the first place. Which brings us to this bill, which has First Amendment issues written all over it.

FNC: “A bill advancing out of a Kentucky Senate committee on Thursday would make it a crime to insult or taunt a police officer to the point where the taunts provoke a violent response. Senate Bill 211 passed by a 7-3 vote, according to reports. The proposal was a response to riots throughout the country last summer, said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, a retired police officer.”

“In these riots, you see people getting up in officers’ faces, yelling in their ears, doing everything they can to provoke a violent response,” Carroll said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “I’m not saying the officers do that, but there has to be a provision within that statute to allow officers to react to that. Because that does nothing but incite those around that vicinity and it furthers and escalates the riotous behavior,” he continued.

Carroll said the measure would not limit protest “in any way, shape, form or fashion.” Yes it does. It limits a citizen’s ability, no matter how boneheaded, to insult a cop. That certainly is  odious, but it is also a constitutionally protected right. Worship of authority can be taken too far.

“This country was built on lawful protest, and it’s something that we must maintain — our citizens’ right to do so. What this deals with are those who cross the line and commit criminal acts,” Carroll said. What criminal act? Only as this bill defines it. Repulsive language is not criminal. I’ll spare you the Voltaire quote. But you get the drift.

The bill makes it a Class B misdemeanor — if a person accosts, insults, taunts, or challenges “a law enforcement officer with offensive or derisive words, or by gestures or other physical contact, that would have a direct tendency to provoke a violent response from the perspective of a reasonable and prudent person.” Physical contact? Fine. Nail them. Words? Law enforcement officers are strong enough to stand up to that.

Corey Shapiro, an attorney with the ACLU of Kentucky, said “the idea that the legislature would be criminalizing speech in such a way is offensive…Verbally challenging police action — even if by insult or offensive language — is a cornerstone of our democracy…And the First Amendment protects people’s ability to express themselves, even if it’s using offensive words to the police.” True. But one wonders, given his words here, if Mr. Shapiro feels this strongly on the issue when it comes to the ridiculous Orwellian concept of “hate speech.” We doubt it.