Florida Dems Attempt To Kill ‘Stand Your Ground’ Fails As I’ve said before, Stand Your Ground laws shouldn’t be controversial. All they do is remove any duty to retreat from a threat, allowing people to act faster in a self-defense situation as they don’t have to look around to see if they can get away. It speeds up the decision-making process, thus saving lives. It doesn’t excuse people shooting when it’s not justified, and it never has. But that doesn’t stop anti-gun Democrats from hating the law and working to repeal it. In Florida, they had their best chance to do just that. In the wake of a controversial shooting in Clearwater, Florida, Democrats in the state legislature thought it was their time. They were wrong. Florida Democratic lawmakers have failed to force the Republican-controlled Legislature to repeal the state’s contentious “stand your ground law.” Democrats asked Secretary of State Ken Detzner to poll legislators on whether they would support holding a special session to amend or repeal the law. The law allows people to use deadly force without retreating if they believe they are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. The move required three-fifths of House and Senate members to vote yes. Whoops. Honestly, from a political standpoint, this was a rookie mistake. You don’t force a vote unless you can win it, and you should know you can win it otherwise. Now, all the pontificating in the world won’t change the fact that anti-gun lawmakers don’t have the votes to change Florida’s gun laws. All they have are hopes and wishes, and everyone knows that’s not enough. Had they not tried to force the vote, they could have continued deluding the masses into thinking there was all this broad support for repealing the Stand Your Ground laws. They could have pretended that it was just a matter of time, maybe gin up more support in the public and potentially pressure lawmakers to side with them. But they didn’t. Instead, they decided to grandstand, force a vote, and they lost. Now they have to rebuild political capital while having shown the world that they didn’t have the support they thought they did. Meanwhile, it’s a good thing they lost. Stand Your Ground laws get a lot of bad press, but they don’t make anything legal that would otherwise be illegal except not requiring people to look to run away from an attack. The truth is, Stand Your Ground laws aren’t just smart law, they’re moral laws. They remove the onus on the victim of a violent crime to try and look for an out. People should be able to act to defend themselves without fear of prosecution because some DA somewhere says there was a way they could get away. That’s what the laws do. A bad shoot is still a bad shoot. The law doesn’t justify gunning someone down in cold blood. It doesn’t justify using lethal force on a purse snatcher. It doesn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, these laws are the victim of a media smear campaign designed to turn public sentiment against a law that almost no one outside of the firearm community seems to understand. https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/08/10/florida-dems-attempt-kill-stand-ground-fails/
A significant portion of the issue stems from judges and prosecutors who take issue with the law, and decide to make it known by claiming such law leaves them no choice but to let an actual murderer go. They deliberately misrepresent matters to generate public support for the repeal of such laws.
The left dislikes the fact we can act in sef-defense at ALL; the fact we can do so with a gun and/or need not try to run away beforehand gives it fits. The state should have a monopoly on force!! Why don't you understand this?!?!?! Note: No charges filed so far.
No one should be shot unless they pose a deadly threat to you or someone else. and your sense that the threat is a deadly one, MUST be reasonable
The standards are deadly or serious injury, and the reasonableness of the attack sometimes must be decided in mere seconds.
The "reasonable fear" standard is put to a jury; in FL, the state must prove to said jury the shooter did not have a reasonable fear. If a prosecutor does not believe he can prove this to as jury, he won't take it to trial.
Reasonable, of course is up for interpretation, whether it be by LE responding to the incident or a jury should LE find the shooting suspicious. And no one (at least, on the pro-gun side) is advocating a change to that.
Yes.....that is what Stand your ground laws are about. So now that we got that out of the way and that the Demos lost on another policy issue. What do you think about that going into an election?
a gunshot to the arm or leg can kill. no need to be shot in the head or heart to die. so if you are going to use deadly force to defend yourself or someone else, you better be damn right that deadly force was neccessary.
It is more than likely that any individual who goes about the process for legally carrying a concealed firearm in the united states, is well aware of this fact.
and yet there are numerous cases of being shooting dead folks in "self-defense" even though the threat did not warrant deadly force, and they are let go Scot Free due to SYG laws.
No, SYG has nothing to do with whether self-defense was warranted or not. SYG is only part of the self-defense issue.
SYG or not, you have no right to shoot someone unless they pose a risk of death to you or others. You should not be able to shoot someone unless your fear of deadly harm is a reasonable one. A judge and jury should evaluate EVERY case of killing done under SYG to make sure the killing was justified and the fear of deadly harm was reasonable.
Correct. They should evaluate every case where someone is charged with a crime. The DA is responsible for bringing cases to trial. There is no reasonable nor process for a judge and jury to review every case of self-defense.
DA should not disregard any killing simply due to a SYG defense. he should look at the evidence, listen to the testimony, and decide if the killing was justified or not. DA should also make sure there were no prior altercation between the two people.
Then cite some such examples, and prove the claim is actually based in reality, rather than a mere fabrication on the part of yourself.
The DA doesn't just disregard any investigation because the shooter claims SYG. Why do you think that? Google "failed stand your ground defenses". You might be surprised.
dont quote me, but I believe in New York, which has a Castle Doctrine with means SYG only in your home, your car and your workplace, you have a duty to retreat if it is possible. however lots of folks kill in self-defense in NY in public because they were cornered and escape wasn't a likely option