Serious Defect In Stand Your Ground Laws

It reverses the incentive. It used to be the incentive was to keep your cool, the first person to loose their cool looses in the eyes of the law. Now, it's the reverse. The first person to shoot the other one, gets to use the excuse of "I had to kill him, I thought my life was in danger" and therefore wins in the eyes of the law.

The law invites violence instead of discouraging it.



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Please. If the same standards were used to allow the police to make arrests and obtain convictions the law would be tossed for being unconstitutionally vague.

And it is the "difference" that makes all of the difference. Self defense requires some effort to avoid or demonstration that avoidance was impossible. All SYG requires is the innocuous "reasonable fear."

trying to get away, trying to avoid demonstrates "reasonable fear." Standing your ground demonstrates a lack of fear.

 

What about 2.5 seconds? Three seconds? How about 4 hours?

"Hurricane Sandy Landfall Imminent Between Cape May, Atlantic City

Posted: Oct 29, 2012 2:48 PM EDT
Updated: Nov 12, 2012 2:50 PM EST"

Where the story at 2:48 goes on to say the storm would make landfall after 6:00.

I guess "imminent" can mean a pretty large range of times can't it? One could go on to say the word is "vague" as in unconstitutionally vague?

 

Police are highly trained to react appropriately to the threat. Still, there are times when a plastic gun or even a movement causes them to kill someone. Now, just think about all the 'crackas' that are armed. If I were a thief or burglar, such instances would be great cause for concern for my physical continuance. I just might think about giving up the 'lifestyle.'

 

Yep, with George capping Thugvon and walking away scott free these punks will think twice. And if parents want to keep their hoodlum teens around they better educate them on how to act in public.

 

I'm sure many will learn the lesson illustrated here: shoot first and the law will be on your side.



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Really? trained to react properly?

Amadou Diallo

ring a bell?

Police fired 41 times at an unarmed man highlighted in a doorway and managed to hit him 19 times from a distance of less than 20 ft.

trained? react properly?

 

the serious defect is that not enough crooks are shot

 

So the solution is getting folks with even less training to feel entitled to join in?


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the end goal is to allow the wolves to run unfettered among the sheep

 

Not vague. It's one or two seconds when you're being physically attacked. Second time I'm telling you. Think you got it now ? I don't have all day for this you know.

 

Not my solution. A recipe for mass murder is not my solution.

 

But "when" you're being physically attacked the attack is not "imminent," it is actually occurring.

You see, as "sure" as you think you are of the definition you cannot provide a reasonable description.

and if you cannot provide a "reasonable" definition of the critical term "imminent" that is acceptable across each and every use of the word then how can "reasonably fear" be clearly defined.

As noted earlier, in self defense the requirement of avoidance demonstrates "reasonable fear." Under SYG the very fact that you are "standing your ground" demonstrates the lack of "reasonable fear."

Bad law.

 

No problem with SYG.

 

You messed up again. The "imminent" doesn't refer to the initiation of an attack. It refers to the "great bodily harm" that will result from the attack. The attack starts, and THEN you are in imminent danger of great bodily harm. Think you got it now ? I don't have all day for this you know. And you may need the protection of the self-defense law and SYG someday.

 

It's always best to completely read a post before replying. That way one doesn't completely miss the point.

 

No, the law doesn't refer to "initiation" on to "reasonably believe" and "great bodily harm" is "imminent. In fact, as noted on a different thread, the threat need not even be "real." All that is required is that you "believe" the "threat" is real.

You can't define the meaning of "imminent."
The law doesn't require the threat to be "real" only that you think it's "real."

Again, in any criminal proceeding would you allow the government this kind of latitude in obtaining convictions?

Would it be OK to put you in prison because some prosecutor honestly "feared" you might be a terrorist?
Would it be OK to lower the standard for criminal convictions from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "honestly believed?"

Just bad law.

 

Amadou Diallo was not a thief or a burglar.

So the point of ending his existence?

 

What makes the ALEC/Koch roach SYG a bad law is that it excuses a killer of all civil liability if it turns out that what he thought was a gun was just a can of ice tea.

"Sorry, but your son is dead just because some idiot thought he was about to shoot him with a can of Lipton's, and there is nothing you can do about it, and the shooter doesn't even have to stand trial," just aint good public policy.

 

That is not my point and frankly a waste of my time.

 

I agree. Apparently whatever your point was was a waste of your time.

 

No, it wouldn't be good to have the law be those things like you described. And that's exactly why it IS NOT like that. It's as I said it is. But if you insist on defining in the loose way you do, you could do that. And when the time comes, I'll visit you up there in the big house. Not my problem.

 

Yea, gung ho wanna be cop Z was judge, jury , and executioner. There's no evidence TM was a violent punk. GZ also add been arrested on numerous occasions, but his daddy judge probably helped with that. There's very few people on this planet that can say if they were held accountable for all of their youthful indiscretions that they might not have wound up in jail if they'd been caught, but 99% of them turned out to be law abiding productive citizens. They didn't get the death penalty for some minor infraction in their teens from some gung ho wanna be cop !!!!!

 

You fail to answer the question.

Would you be willing to hold police and prosecutors to the same legal standards as applied in SYG?

If not, then you should acknowledge that the law is just bad law.