The problem is the gun.
f something is legal then a judge or jury cannot just make up new laws.
If everyone is allowed to carry a gun then we cannot presume that a person running around with a gun is looking for trouble.
And if everyone has a gun then a lot of self-defense scenarios end up with a dead person.
I find that a lot of people see GZ running around with a gun as a deep defect of character and suggestive of ill intent.
I do too.
But when it is legal and legally unexceptional, then that is what it is. You cannot (legally) read bad intent or moral defect into what a state legislature has deemed to be unexceptional, normal behavior within ones rights.
We cannot assume muslims are terrorists. We cannot assume anyone who looks at porn is a rapist.
And we cannot (legally) attribute extraordinary motivations to someone carrying a gun in a culture where that is just something to do.
In the old west, walking into a store with a gun was not suggestive of a plan to rob the store.
In New York City today, walking into a store with a gun is aberrant and suggestive of all sorts of things.
In Florida today, walking in with a gun is like the old west... not extraordinary.
I have no gigantic problem with Florida self-defense statutes except where they get into protecting property. They are tendentious and wing-nutty, yes, but in New York city they wouldn't lead to a lot of deaths.
Florida self-defense laws are mostly problematic to the degree to which everyone HAS A GUN.
If everyone has a gun then a lot of people get shot. It does not follow that the criminal justice system is supposed to clean up the legislature's mess. It cannot.
And if one wanted to change the state laws, then why not cut to the chase and restrict guns? The state legislature is not going to do either one, so why not aim high? (bad metaphor in context, but you know what I mean)
If people carry guns like it is not a thing then all sorts of social conflict can, and will, result in death. And some of those shootings will be legally justifiable, despite the fact that absent a gun nobody would have died.
It really is the guns.
Stand your ground? So what? Stand your ground with a baseball bat is not much of an issue.
When people have the right to carry guns like it's no big thing then all of our laws, all of our standards of conduct will be deformed by that practical reality.
The problem is ultimately the number of armed people engaging in social interaction.
Guns, guns, guns.
You think your teenage daughter is a burglar? Then that's what you think... it happens. If you have a gun on your hip your daughter's chances of dying go up a lot. If you don't have a gun she'll probably survive. You will probably not kill her with a machete. That's just the way these things work. People who got the wrong address get shot through doors all the time. Few people get macheted through doors.
And I say this as someone genuinely troubled by gun control issues. I value rights and autonomy more than most and am not comfortable with anyone being dismissive of rights of theirs they don't happen to use.
But c'mon... if Florida didn't allow everyone to be Wyatt Erp then Martin and Zimmerman would probably both be alive.
No way around it.
IMO.
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