Yes it is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Because if you calmly assert your rights a cop is not just going to begin choking you and firing bullets into you.

And using extremely rare examples of police encounters like that which became nationally inflated stories, creating a false idea that this is a regular occurrence at any statistically significant rate, is nothing but hyperbole and fear mongering.

Of course "Man bites dog" is going to create a media sensation because USUALLY dog bites man. The issue here is fooling yourself into thinking that is a regular occurrence. It became news BECAUSE it is rare, not despite of it.

I am not saying unjustified police violence doesn't happen.

In a population of over 327,000,000 and an estimated 850,000 sworn officers -- it is impossible to prevent or predict unfortunate incidents at a 100% rate of success.

What bothers me is acting like simply exercising your Federally protected rights written into the fabric of our country's founding principles is going to DEFAULT get you shot or choked to death.

Or even that this is a likely scenario.

I would be inclined to agree that this scenario may become more likely if you begin yelling, cussing, berating, flailing your arms around, and generally becoming confrontational -- sure.

But to act as if any person calmly saying something as simple as "I don't consent to searches" is going to cause another human being-- who is just a human who probably has zero desire to kill somebody just like you have no desire to kill somebody -- to take a pistol and murder you with it is absurd.

Like do you REALLY believe that?