True story.
Back in 1965 an old guy up the street owned a mom and pop liquor store. One night a young white guy came in to rob the place. I don't remember now if he waved a gun or wore a mask. The old man reached under the counter, pulled out a .38, and shot the guy dead. The police came, took the witness statements, let the old man close up the store and go home. No charges filed, no taking into custody to wait for the prosecutor to review the case, no gun confiscated.
The next night the dead guy's brother comes in the store and announces he's going to kill the old man. The brother has his hands in his jacket pockets like he has a gun. The old man goes for his .38 again, and by the time he gets it up and fires the brother has turned back towards the door. The (unarmed after all) brother gets the bullet in the back and dies on the spot.
The police come and take the witness statements, let the old man close up his store and go home. No charges filed, no taking into custody to wait for the prosecutor to review the case, no gun confiscated. Since the old man faced two death threats from the same family, and there were more family members, they parked a manned police car in the old man's home driveway all night for the next two or three weeks.
Imagine this scenario playing out today. The old man would have been cuffed and transported, locked up for days, had his gun confiscated, and most likely faced some kind of criminal prosecution in order to justify taking him into custody in the first place. The second shooting may have been delayed a while, but most likely would have still occurred, BUT that would have done the old man in for good even if he somehow made it through the first legal gauntlet.
I'm old enough to have witnessed law enforcement evolve into a whole lot of LEO CYA at all costs versus doing what is obviously the right thing under the circumstances. Once some kind of action is initiated, a ped check, whatever, the incentive is to CYA by justifying the action some how some way. Probably most people stopped and checked out did something to deserve it, but not all.
I've been stopped and checked for no reason whatsoever, and the cop even admitted it was just random, and I didn't like it at all. I came out 100% clean in all respects and still got a general purpose warning for ... whatever. The pointless warning about nothing specific became the CYA justification for the unconstitutional random stop. Not in a crime area, no traffic or vehicle violations, just a random stop to get another point for the proactive score sheet.
Most of my friends through life have been cops, had cop sons, fathers, brothers, etc, so I am not anti-cop at all. I spent a good chunk of life working in cop shops. What I object to strongly is the drift towards department policy and custom becoming "the law" as practiced on the street.