A bill that would punish potty-mouthed cops with a pink slip goes before a State House committee today, and it’s already drawing a polite, but firm response from law enforcement.

“Take a model officer, a 10-year veteran. One arrest and he drops an ‘F’ bomb. And we’re going to fire him? I think that’s over the top,” said Everett Police Chief Steven Mazzie, president of the Major City Chiefs. “Police departments wouldn’t tolerate any of that behavior anyway. … But I think it’s extremely difficult to legislate civility.”

The legislation, dubbed “An Act to prohibit in­appropriate language use by sworn law officers,” is a proposal by state Rep. Benjamin Swan (D-Springfield) that makes the use of “name-calling” or profanity by cops in the line of duty “grounds for dismissal.”

“These folks, they’re public servants. It’s unprofessional and beneath the dignity of any public servant to use that language toward the people they’re representing,” said state Rep. Paul Heroux (D-Attleboro), one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “I think this bill is reinforcing good police practice.”

Wayne Sampson, executive director of Massachusetts Chiefs of Police, said the “radical” legislation is broadly written, with no exceptions, even for undercover cops.

“Certainly we can’t have them speaking proper English at all times while working with gangs,” Sampson said. “We feel this is very aggressive remedy for a situation that may not be as severe as projected here.”

The bill also targets cops using racial slurs or any type of “negative stereo­typing.”

“The ‘N’ word is common,” Swan claimed. “I know it’s not every police officer. … I don’t know why anyone would have a problem thinking it’s all right that it shouldn’t be a requirement for an officer to uphold the law.”

Police were adamant they don’t take those situations lightly. A Leominster cop was fired last year after yelling a racial slur at former Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford at a minor league baseball game while off duty.

And attorney Jared Olanoff, who represented a Springfield man who was beaten and called a racial slur by cops in 2009, said, “An officer who uses a racial slur during the arrest, I don’t care how stressful the situation is, I agree (that part of) the bill would appropriate. But to say that an officer should be automatically fired because he used a profanity is sort of extreme.”