There has long been a law prescribing it is illegal to shoot someone in the back. But that law did not save Walter Scott. Although unarmed and not threatening his killer, he was shot in the back by a South Carolina policeman while running away during a routine traffic stop. It is certainly appropriate to ban chokeholds by the police in the wake of George Floyd’s death. But I doubt the law will save anyone’s life. Laws by themselves haven’t been shown to protect people of color. Hence the call for “systemic change.”