Argument police, pull over. You cannot use something that hasn’t been proven to prove something else that hasn’t been proven. That’s called “buggering the question”.
Well if the other person is just defending himself as well, then once he realizes that the first person is just being defensive, everything should just stop, no?
Why does every interaction have to be a Mexican standoff with someone (or everyone for that matter) getting shot?
Everyone being allowed to carry guns, and everyone being allowed to shoot each other just because they fear that they might be in danger, would lead to lots and lots of death by defense with no offense, right?
How do you not see the problem with this scenario?
No. Look at the section in the law that the argument was related to. There are two parts: one being reasonable belief in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and the other is exchausting every reasonable means to escape such danger.
Since **cosmosdan **didn’t object to the “reasonable belief” part, he stipulated the fact of Martin sitting on top of Zimmerman beating him up for the sake of his argument. So I pointed out that once you do stipulate that, the escape clause is irrelevant.
Because every fight and every person involved in it are cool and rational.
“Every”?
And yet crime rates in Florida (including homicide rates) dropped since 2005 - when SYG was introduced. Impossible to say whether SYG played any role in that, but impossible to say it didn’t, either.
Every interaction between two people just defending themselves. You don’t seem to leave room for anything other than one of them shooting the other. Can you think of another way out then?
Well that’s cool. If you want to live in the old west, that’s ok, but I’m glad I live in a different kind of state. To each their own I suppose.
Sure. But once it gets to the point where one party has reasonable belief in imminent danger of death, deadly force is allowed to be used. It is not required that it is used. But it is allowed.
Homicides deemed “justifiable” are not included in crime statistics, since they are not crimes. Yes?
Yes but how did either one get to the point of believing they are in imminent danger if they are both defending themselves. Can you just admit that someone has to make an offensive move to make that happen? How else is either party going to feel danger if they are both being defensive? How does it switch to the imminent danger of death scenario without one of the parties doing something offensive?
Of course. Either Martin or Zimmerman initiated the physical confrontation.
The law covers the aggressor as well. See the excerpt that **cosmosdan **posted above.
By the way - to all those who claim that Zimmerman wasn’t arrested because he was “white”, and a black shooter would have been arrested on the spot:
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981257118
Yes.
Here is a good graphic: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/4/5/1333636517549/Justifiable-homicides-cha-001.jpg
Do you see much difference between states with SYG and without?
Stand Your Ground laws coincide with jump in justifiable-homicide cases
Comment?
In some states. In some states they coincide with a drop. Did you see that graphic I showed you a couple of posts earlier?
I would go with the Guardian article that Terr mentioned. It appears to be better reasearched.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/05/jusifiable-homicides-guns-data-analysis#
The Washington Post article seems a lot sloppier. the Kuch case seems to fall under earlier castle doctrine. They also didn’t make a good case using a Dooley case.
This makes James look like the aggressor, who assaulted an elderly black man.
Also this part from the article is a little disturbing:
The statistic that justified killing by police also tripled makes it sound like the increase sound like independent of the law change.
Both articles lack some background. If you have over 50 murders per million, then an increase in justifiable homocide of 1 per million sounds more like noise.
Sarcasm is not really addressing the law as written is it?
The intertubes are all atwitter about photos that “prove Zimmerman was attacked”. Well, here you go!
Don’t know what to make of this, there is blood, but no apparent injury, and a very oddly precise “border”.
I thought that the injury on the left was peculiar too but I’m no expert on head trauma. Maybe it came from striking the edge of the sidewalk? The injury on the right appears to be in about the same position as the knot on the head from the “enhanced” photos.
The eyewitness to the scuffle said they were never near the sidewalk.
Evidently it was taken with an Iphone by someone who came out after the shot. The embedded data shows it was taken at that time.
After reading the police report I believed Z’man had blood on him. It doesn’t look like heavy bleeding or serious wounds.
Z’man also was released on bail,
Well, you told the police late teens, so you kinda did know. Why would you suspect this young man was armed , and if you did, why would you get out of your car to follow him?
Then there’s this,
We shall see.
There was no eyewitness that saw the scuffle from beginning to end was there.
To be ruthlessly fair, I wouldn’t put much stock in changes of storyline, unless there is some definite evidence of studied deception. People are not good memory machines, we just think we are. This is especially true under times of stress.
Now, to construct a hypothetical (and only hypothetical), if he said he had been beaten against the sidewalk, and someone said there was no blood on the sidewalk, and he instantly remembered it was on the grass, then yeah, that would be suspicious. Memory is the least reliable form of evidence, either way.