Stand Up FOR "Stand Your Ground" Law?

What do you think of the "Stand Your Ground" Law?

It's flawed, it needs to be thrown out the old self defense laws are good enough for you & Mr Overprotective over there.	38.7%	[ 55 ]
It's good & patriotic & keeps men & women safe & empowered as US citizens	35.2%	[ 50 ]
I'm unsure what to think about it...	26.1%	[ 37 ]
Total Votes:			[ 142 ]

[God Emperor Baldur]

So this is what it's all about? You guys would rather let a killer go free for the sake of gun rights?

[David2074]

Omnileech

Stand your ground promotes vigilantism, racial profiling, and protects people who escalate arguments or confrontations, and completely disregards necessary force.

Most of the people who use stand your ground as a defense do so against young, unarmed people.

For example, OP, if someone DID break into your house and your husband used a baseball bat and broke the intruder's leg in the dark. That would be reasonable self-defense. If he broke the intruder's leg, then as the intruder lay there unable to run or fight, then smashed the man's head in, that would be excessive force and murder. That is unless you claim stand your ground. Then he'd get off for murder.

http://www.tampabay.com/stand-your-ground-law/fatal-cases

You think that's ridiculous?

16 year old bullied kid stabs and kills unarmed 14 year old bully 12 times and is not punished in any way.

Another case

What do a lot of stand your ground cases have in common? There is no attempt to diffuse the situation. That's not required by the law.

If you so much as start an argument with someone armed then they can kill you in self-defense whether you even get close enough to actually fight them or not.

Your absurd example is absurd.
Bludgeoning to death a man who is laying on your floor in agony with a broken leg is murder plain and simple with or without stand your ground laws. Please link me to an actual stand your ground law that would make that okay.
The only exception would be IF the man was still posing an immediate threat to you or someone else. So if for example instead of laying there waiting for the police to come he picked up his shotgun and broken leg or no was trying to shoot you then yes, it would be okay to shoot him. On the other hand if all he did was hold his knife and say, "Don't come near me until the cops / paramedics get here" then no, he is not an immediate threat to you and you can't kill him.

Again, please go read examples of actual stand your ground laws instead of making up bizarre s**t.

Related - NO, stand your ground does NOT allow you to start s**t and then claim you felt threatened. Many of them have specific exclusions if you were the one who started the altercation.

And as to your links - can there be some examples of where the law was abused or not carried out properly? Yeah, sure. But like I said, same is true for any law.
In many states people are allowed to carry guns. You can find cases of people committing crimes with guns. Not a valid argument for why nobody should be allowed to carry a gun.
All states have police forces. You can find plenty of examples where a police officer committed a crime, including rape, robbery and sometimes murder. Not a valid argument for why we would be better off with no police officers.
A few exceptions to a rule do not invalidate the usefulness of the rule.

So let's talk about your specific links - because personally I don't see them as a valid argument against stand your ground.

In the first link a 14 year old is being bullied by older kids on the bus.
He does try to flee the situation by getting off the bus early. The older kids follow him.
He then continues to try to remove himself from the situation by walking away but the kid(s) follow him and punch him in the back of the head.
Finally after multiple tries to flee the kid pulled a knife and defended himself. It was a pocketknife and the death a was likely by accident. Your link says the knife just nicked the heart.
Did the victim initiate the confrontation? YES
Did the defendant pursue the victim? NO
Could the defendant have retreated to avoid the conflict? NO
Did someone witness the attack? YES
Was there physical evidence? YES

In your second link death could possibly have been avoided but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the 'victim'. First he was yelling at the father in law. Then at a later point he made it a point to come onto the father in laws' property to confront him and demand respect and put up his fists and started advancing. Trespassing to threaten someone on their own property and then proceeding to initiate an attack on them is not very defendable.

The part of that second story that seems screwed up to me is not the stand your ground law but the fact that had the father in law merely 'brandished' his firearm for fired 'warning shots' into the air he may have gone to jail for those 'crimes'. That reminds me of those stories about the burglar who gets injured 'on the job' and then sues the homeowner.

[x-Garethp-x]

David2074

x-Garethp-x

Stand Your Ground is stupid. Removing it won't stop Self-Defense. Self-Defense was ALWAYS a thing. But Self-Defense was always meant to reasonable. IE: If someone comes at you, but tries to run away, you can't shoot him in the back of the head

Stand your ground would not protect you from prosecution if you shoot someone in the back of the head while they are running away. A 'reasonable person' would not perceive they were in 'immediate danger of severe injury or death' by a person who was running away. Most stand your ground laws have wording to that effect.

Basically stand your ground laws say you don't have to be the one running away if you don't want to be.
They also say you can protect someone else who is in immediate danger of serious injury or death.
What is reasonable under 'self defense' and under 'stand your ground' are very very similar.
The amount of misinformation floating around about stand your ground is sad.

Okay, so why is the current self-defense laws inadequate then? There's also a lot more mis-information when you're not actually in the country where everything is being discussed.

[David2074]

Divine_Malevolence

Honestly, we just need a different law.

It would read: "You are not protected by the laws of self defense if the situation you found yourself in was a direct result of reckless and inappropriate actions on your part."



We could call it "Murder in the Third Degree".

David2074

Your comment suggests you are only thinking about a person coming after you - say with a knife - and whether or not you should run away if you can. Here are some other scenarios for your consideration.

1. I see a man (or men) raping a woman in an alley.
2. I see a group of men chaining a black guy to the back of a pickup to drag him to death.
3. I see an obvious kidnapping happening.
All of those things have happened in real life. Under your desired version of the law I could do nothing other than maybe shout "Hey you stop it!" as I ran away because I am not allowed to use the force necessary to stop them and I was not personally in any danger until I chose to insert myself into the situation.

Defense of a third person doesn't really need any stand your ground laws, though.

Stand your ground laws already have exclusions similar to that. At least in some states it says (in better legal terms) that if you started the s**t you can't claim stand your ground.

Third person -
Why not? If you are protecting a third person it is not 'self defense'. But it is also not running away from a felony you see being committed. You are 'standing your ground' to protect the victim of the attack / crime.
But whether or not you think it should be included it is included in many states. And IMO you should be able to come to the aid of the victim of a felony, whether or not you call such a law stand your ground. Like I said in another post, technically my state does not have a 'stand your ground' law but it effectively does do to other laws and how our courts have historically interpreted them.

[Kasumi of Vientown]

Self-defense, in general, says that you can use force, up to and including Lethal force, if a reasonable person in your position would have a credible fear of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others. They can't just say they were afraid, and have it be an irrational fear, so Stand Your Ground is NOT a license to kill.

Example: You are out on a picnic with your family and a man comes up with a knife and demands all your money, but he just displays it and doesn't come within five feet of you, he demands you throw the money and jewelry on the ground and that you back away from it

Situation one: Your father pulls out a gun and shoots the would be thief in the chest, and he dies. In that situation, if your father claimed he feared for the safety of himself and his family and stood his ground, then he'd likely be found guilty of Manslaughter, because even though the thief had a knife, he kept his distance and there was no imminent threat of death of great bodily harm.

Situation two: Your father pulls out a gun and warns the would-be thief to drop the knife. Rather then drop the knife, though, the thief raises it like he might throw it at someone, and your father shoots and kills him. That would be a case of self defense.

Situation three: Your father pulls out a gun and tells warns the would-be thief to drop the knife. Rather then drop the knife, though, the thief rushes forward and tries to grab you or a sibling, and your father shoots and kills him before he can. This, too, would be self-defense.

Example : Your father is on his way to work, and a man with a knife comes up to the window demanding money. The window is down a bit, enough for him to stick the knife through, but not all the way down.

Situation one : Your father is parked at a stop light, and the light just turned green, so he has the ability to probably escape, because once the car is moving, the thief wont be able to stick the knife threw, but instead your father pulls out a gun and shoots the thief, who dies. Your father then says that he was afraid that the man might try to stab him, even once the car was moving, Sure, most thieves probably wouldn't want to stick a knife into a moving vehicle, but what if this was the one thief that would do it? THIS is what Stand Your Ground is about.. His life was threatened in a very real manner, and while he had a likely method that could have let him escape, he was not required to escape, and he could react to the immediate threat. Without Stand Your Ground, your father would be forced to attempt to escape, even if, in the heat of the moment, he was unaware that the light turned green or that the option to escape existed. Ignorance of the available escape method will not save your father from being arrested.

Situation two :Your father is in a traffic jam, and there's nowhere that he can maneuver to escape the man, so he pulls out a gun and shoots and kills him. This is traditional self-defense.

Anyway, self-defense is difficult to prove, and a lot of times people in those situations are unaware of other things around them, and may not notice an opportunity to escape when it presents itself, but prosecutors can, AND DO, argue that the existence of those methods of escape, whether you were aware of them or not, disprove self-defense, mainly because many of them have anti-gun agenda's.

Having the Stand Your Ground laws means that you do not have to be aware of every possible escape method in the heat of the moment and you cannot be prosecuted for missing something. And you can defend yourself and other with lethal force in any situation where a reasonable person would fear dear or great bodily harm to him or herself, or to others.

Repealing Stand Your Ground would be a big ol' thumbs up to Anti-gun prosecutors who want to punish law-abiding citizens who were put into a terrible position through no fault of their own.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/in-the-news/norwegian-woman-i-was-raped-in-dubai-now-i-face-prison-sen/t.87011735/

This is America, NOT DUBAI!

[David2074]

Omnileech

David2074

x-Garethp-x

Stand Your Ground is stupid. Removing it won't stop Self-Defense. Self-Defense was ALWAYS a thing. But Self-Defense was always meant to reasonable. IE: If someone comes at you, but tries to run away, you can't shoot him in the back of the head

Stand your ground would not protect you from prosecution if you shoot someone in the back of the head while they are running away. A 'reasonable person' would not perceive they were in 'immediate danger of severe injury or death' by a person who was running away. Most stand your ground laws have wording to that effect.

Basically stand your ground laws say you don't have to be the one running away if you don't want to be.
They also say you can protect someone else who is in immediate danger of serious injury or death.
What is reasonable under 'self defense' and under 'stand your ground' are very very similar.
The amount of misinformation floating around about stand your ground is sad.

SYG has successfully been used to protect people who have killed others while they were retreating.

I don't see a link but not saying it could not have happened.
But if it has happened then I would argue the stand your ground law in that jurisdiction should probably be amended so it doesn't happen. Stand your ground laws are not identical in every state that has them. Argument can be made that some could be improved. Unfortunately some here instead argue they should be abolished across the board which I find short sighted and 'knee jerk'.

I live in a secluded remote location where if I get a home intruder whatever happens (i.e. maybe me getting murdered) is likely to happen long before the cops get here. Stand your ground gives me some peace of mind that I am less likely to go to prison for defending myself and my home. Even so, we are back to that wording that is has to be something a reasonable person would consider a serious immediate threat to my person. I can't just blast away at shadows in the yard and see what I might kill and claim it was okay.

[Kasumi of Vientown]

David2074

Omnileech

David2074

x-Garethp-x

Stand Your Ground is stupid. Removing it won't stop Self-Defense. Self-Defense was ALWAYS a thing. But Self-Defense was always meant to reasonable. IE: If someone comes at you, but tries to run away, you can't shoot him in the back of the head

Stand your ground would not protect you from prosecution if you shoot someone in the back of the head while they are running away. A 'reasonable person' would not perceive they were in 'immediate danger of severe injury or death' by a person who was running away. Most stand your ground laws have wording to that effect.

Basically stand your ground laws say you don't have to be the one running away if you don't want to be.
They also say you can protect someone else who is in immediate danger of serious injury or death.
What is reasonable under 'self defense' and under 'stand your ground' are very very similar.
The amount of misinformation floating around about stand your ground is sad.

SYG has successfully been used to protect people who have killed others while they were retreating.

I don't see a link but not saying it could not have happened.
But if it has happened then I would argue the stand your ground law in that jurisdiction should probably be amended so it doesn't happen. Stand your ground laws are not identical in every state that has them. Argument can be made that some could be improved. Unfortunately some here instead argue they should be abolished across the board which I find short sighted and 'knee jerk'.

I live in a secluded remote location where if I get a home intruder whatever happens (i.e. maybe me getting murdered) is likely to happen long before the cops get here. Stand your ground gives me some peace of mind that I am less likely to go to prison for defending myself and my home. Even so, we are back to that wording that is has to be something a reasonable person would consider a serious immediate threat to my person. I can't just blast away at shadows in the yard and see what I might kill and claim it was okay.

Likely this is a situation where it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the person was retreating. More then likely, it's that persons unsubstantiated opinion, and that's why they provided no links.

[David2074]

x-Garethp-x

David2074

x-Garethp-x

Stand Your Ground is stupid. Removing it won't stop Self-Defense. Self-Defense was ALWAYS a thing. But Self-Defense was always meant to reasonable. IE: If someone comes at you, but tries to run away, you can't shoot him in the back of the head

Stand your ground would not protect you from prosecution if you shoot someone in the back of the head while they are running away. A 'reasonable person' would not perceive they were in 'immediate danger of severe injury or death' by a person who was running away. Most stand your ground laws have wording to that effect.

Basically stand your ground laws say you don't have to be the one running away if you don't want to be.
They also say you can protect someone else who is in immediate danger of serious injury or death.
What is reasonable under 'self defense' and under 'stand your ground' are very very similar.
The amount of misinformation floating around about stand your ground is sad.

Okay, so why is the current self-defense laws inadequate then? There's also a lot more mis-information when you're not actually in the country where everything is being discussed.

Well, to my point of view stand your ground laws ARE self defense laws. Really the biggest distinction (generalizing) is just that stand your ground laws say you can 'stand your ground'. In other words, when someone presents (what a reasonable person would interpret as) an immediate serious threat of injury or death to you or another person you don't have to run away. Of course you still CAN run away, you just don't have to.

But like I said in another post, they also allow you to protect another person. Strictly speaking that is not 'self defense'. But personally I don't want to live in a state where if I see a serious crime happening against another person my only option is to call the police and then sit down with a big tub of buttered popcorn and watch the show and see how it turns out. Not that I want to play hero but on another occasion it could be me who is the victim and some other person eating the popcorn and saying, "Sorry, I'm not allowed to help you. I'd get in trouble".

For a bit of further reading if you want -
Stand your ground - wiki
States That Have Stand Your Ground Laws
If you click on the individual states in that second link it takes you to the actual wording of the laws for that state.
Also worth noting some states are not listed - such as my own WA state - because technically our laws are not 'stand your ground'. So back to your original question regarding stand your ground vs self defense - WA state does not have a stand your ground law. We have self defense laws and laws about when homicide (a person being killed) is permissible and our laws effectively make us a stand your ground state in practice if not officially.

[David2074]

Kasumi of Vientown

Likely this is a situation where it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the person was retreating. More then likely, it's that persons unsubstantiated opinion, and that's why they provided no links.

Possibly, I just chose not to judge.
I don't have the self defense / stand your ground laws memorized for every state and I know they differ so hypothetically one of them could have a loophole. I would be curious to have a link and know the state, though that would not change my opinion that on the whole stand your ground laws are a good thing, even if some of them need improving.

I also kind of chuckle that some folks seem to be treating them as entirely separate from self defense laws. They are simply some of the laws that help to define what is acceptable in terms of how you defend yourself (or another).

Many folks seem to think 'Stand your ground' = '007 license to kill'
It is apparent that in most cases they have not bothered to actually read the legal verbiage and are just going off rhetoric and emotion they have seen tossed around in the news and in forums.

[Valiant Corvus]

Always been against it before. The Martin case only further cemented my belief.

It's cost more lives than it has actually saved.

[JamesWN]

Valiant Corvus

Always been against it before. The Martin case only further cemented my belief.

It's cost more lives than it has actually saved.

A case where SYG wasn't even used cemented you belief? stare

[Valiant Corvus]

JamesWN

Valiant Corvus

Always been against it before. The Martin case only further cemented my belief.

It's cost more lives than it has actually saved.

A case where SYG wasn't even used cemented you belief? stare

It may not have been used, but that doesn't mean it was unrelated.

[MistressOfTheShadows]

Kasumi of Vientown

Socil

MistressOfTheShadows

]
As far as I'm concerned repealing it would be like giving criminals a licence to rape, rob & kill people & tying the hands of women like me from defending ourselves when we're off alone someplace & the hands of good, brave, protective men like my fiance from protecting not just themselves, but their woman & their family when they aren't away working hard to bring home the bacon.

That's stupid. I live in a state without stand your ground laws and we DO protect ourselves using violent force if necessary, but we don't need some stupid loophole law letting people go the extra mile of killing people when killing is unnecessary to defuse a situation.

Self-defense, in general, says that you can use force, up to and including Lethal force, if a reasonable person in your position would have a credible fear of death or great bodily harm to yourself or others. They can't just say they were afraid, and have it be an irrational fear, so Stand Your Ground is NOT a license to kill.

Example: You are out on a picnic with your family and a man comes up with a knife and demands all your money, but he just displays it and doesn't come within five feet of you, he demands you throw the money and jewelry on the ground and that you back away from it

Situation one: Your father pulls out a gun and shoots the would be thief in the chest, and he dies. In that situation, if your father claimed he feared for the safety of himself and his family and stood his ground, then he'd likely be found guilty of Manslaughter, because even though the thief had a knife, he kept his distance and there was no imminent threat of death of great bodily harm.

Situation two: Your father pulls out a gun and warns the would-be thief to drop the knife. Rather then drop the knife, though, the thief raises it like he might throw it at someone, and your father shoots and kills him. That would be a case of self defense.

Situation three: Your father pulls out a gun and tells warns the would-be thief to drop the knife. Rather then drop the knife, though, the thief rushes forward and tries to grab you or a sibling, and your father shoots and kills him before he can. This, too, would be self-defense.

Example : Your father is on his way to work, and a man with a knife comes up to the window demanding money. The window is down a bit, enough for him to stick the knife through, but not all the way down.

Situation one : Your father is parked at a stop light, and the light just turned green, so he has the ability to probably escape, because once the car is moving, the thief wont be able to stick the knife threw, but instead your father pulls out a gun and shoots the thief, who dies. Your father then says that he was afraid that the man might try to stab him, even once the car was moving, Sure, most thieves probably wouldn't want to stick a knife into a moving vehicle, but what if this was the one thief that would do it? THIS is what Stand Your Ground is about.. His life was threatened in a very real manner, and while he had a likely method that could have let him escape, he was not required to escape, and he could react to the immediate threat. Without Stand Your Ground, your father would be forced to attempt to escape, even if, in the heat of the moment, he was unaware that the light turned green or that the option to escape existed. Ignorance of the available escape method will not save your father from being arrested.

Situation two :Your father is in a traffic jam, and there's nowhere that he can maneuver to escape the man, so he pulls out a gun and shoots and kills him. This is traditional self-defense.

Anyway, self-defense is difficult to prove, and a lot of times people in those situations are unaware of other things around them, and may not notice an opportunity to escape when it presents itself, but prosecutors can, AND DO, argue that the existence of those methods of escape, whether you were aware of them or not, disprove self-defense, mainly because many of them have anti-gun agenda's.

Having the Stand Your Ground laws means that you do not have to be aware of every possible escape method in the heat of the moment and you cannot be prosecuted for missing something. And you can defend yourself and other with lethal force in any situation where a reasonable person would fear dear or great bodily harm to him or herself, or to others.

Repealing Stand Your Ground would be a big ol' thumbs up to Anti-gun prosecutors who want to punish law-abiding citizens who were put into a terrible position through no fault of their own.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/in-the-news/norwegian-woman-i-was-raped-in-dubai-now-i-face-prison-sen/t.87011735/

This is America, NOT DUBAI!

Thank you, I agree completely, finally someone with some sense!

[MistressOfTheShadows]

David2074

x-Garethp-x

David2074

x-Garethp-x

Stand Your Ground is stupid. Removing it won't stop Self-Defense. Self-Defense was ALWAYS a thing. But Self-Defense was always meant to reasonable. IE: If someone comes at you, but tries to run away, you can't shoot him in the back of the head

Stand your ground would not protect you from prosecution if you shoot someone in the back of the head while they are running away. A 'reasonable person' would not perceive they were in 'immediate danger of severe injury or death' by a person who was running away. Most stand your ground laws have wording to that effect.

Basically stand your ground laws say you don't have to be the one running away if you don't want to be.
They also say you can protect someone else who is in immediate danger of serious injury or death.
What is reasonable under 'self defense' and under 'stand your ground' are very very similar.
The amount of misinformation floating around about stand your ground is sad.

Okay, so why is the current self-defense laws inadequate then? There's also a lot more mis-information when you're not actually in the country where everything is being discussed.

Well, to my point of view stand your ground laws ARE self defense laws. Really the biggest distinction (generalizing) is just that stand your ground laws say you can 'stand your ground'. In other words, when someone presents (what a reasonable person would interpret as) an immediate serious threat of injury or death to you or another person you don't have to run away. Of course you still CAN run away, you just don't have to.

But like I said in another post, they also allow you to protect another person. Strictly speaking that is not 'self defense'. But personally I don't want to live in a state where if I see a serious crime happening against another person my only option is to call the police and then sit down with a big tub of buttered popcorn and watch the show and see how it turns out. Not that I want to play hero but on another occasion it could be me who is the victim and some other person eating the popcorn and saying, "Sorry, I'm not allowed to help you. I'd get in trouble".

For a bit of further reading if you want -
Stand your ground - wiki
States That Have Stand Your Ground Laws
If you click on the individual states in that second link it takes you to the actual wording of the laws for that state.
Also worth noting some states are not listed - such as my own WA state - because technically our laws are not 'stand your ground'. So back to your original question regarding stand your ground vs self defense - WA state does not have a stand your ground law. We have self defense laws and laws about when homicide (a person being killed) is permissible and our laws effectively make us a stand your ground state in practice if not officially.

I agree with you on the 3rd person thing, it makes me sick when I see videos on TV that someone shot on their cellphone of someone getting raped, beaten or killed while a bunch of people just stand around gawking! & What if I was that 3rd person & my fiance had to helplessly stand by and watch me get gang-raped or something?

[Kasumi of Vientown]

Valiant Corvus

Always been against it before. The Martin case only further cemented my belief.

It's cost more lives than it has actually saved.

If you are trying to show everyone how stupid and ignorant you are, then you did a good job of it. Trayvon Martin was a violent thug, and George Zimmerman acted in Self-Defense. TRADITIONAL SELF-DEFENSE, that is. Florida's Stand-Your-Ground law was completely irrelevant to the case you brainwashed, liberal moron. The only way that Stand-Your-Ground could have been relevant was if George Zimmerman had that pre-trial Stand-Your-Ground Hearing, which the defense decided not to have. Since that trial never occurred, no part of Stand-Your-Ground was relevant to the trial, it was all about Traditional Self-Defense.