Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumFlorida (Democratic state) senator files bill to change “stand your ground” law
http://politics.heraldtribune.com/2012/12/19/florida-senator-files-bill-to-change-stand-your-ground-law/Armed citizens would not be able to automatically cite stand your ground protections if they provoke or pursue their assailants following confrontations, under a measure filed Wednesday by the Senate Democratic leader.
Responding to the death earlier this year of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old who was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer, Minority Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, introduced a bill (SB 136) that would also allow law enforcement officers to arrest suspects who invoke the states controversial stand-your-ground law under questionable circumstances.
These common sense changes are not about taking away gun rights from Floridians, Smith said in a statement. Its about stemming the culture of violence in our society by putting responsibility for the consequences back into the hands of gun users, and anyone who deploys deadly force under stand your ground.
Existing law prohibits authorities from arresting stand-your-ground defendants unless there is probable cause to believe their actions were unlawful. The law is also unclear, Smith says, on whether someone can invoke the stand-your-ground law when they pursue their assailant.
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The Backlash is HERE
yup
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)jmowreader
(50,566 posts)Do even Texas or Arizona - two states that were part of the classical Wild West - have laws like this? I know Idaho doesn't and we do like our guns here.
The right to keep and bear arms is not the right to put a cap in your ass if you piss me off. This change will clarify that.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)outside the home is whatever the common law is, which could be SYG like California and the federal level or not or some kind of duty to retreat. Can't find the precedent either way, and I have no desire to find out first hand.
GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)In Texas, self-defense is still an affirmative defense. I have to admit to the killing and then I have to prove it was self-defense.
In FL the state has to prove that the killing was not self-defense and therefore unlawful.
In neither state do you have the ability to kill over mere anger. The classic elements of self-defense still have to be present. The dead guy has to have had the means, opportunity, and motive (as demonstrated by an overt action) to harm the defender. Absent that, it isn't self-defense but instead is murder. All SYG does is remove the duty to retreat, nothing more. Lots have people have believed the VPC hysteria over it.
sarisataka
(18,812 posts)of SYG, but is such a clarification helps all the better
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)because that act changes you from defender to counter attacker. But, I'm not sure that has anything to do with the Martin case. I can think of a case in Miami that might relate to this.
What was the previous law if there was one? Many places are based on local common law.
ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)spin
(17,493 posts)It dies on the vine.