I didn’t see a clause that stated SYG/Self Defense only applies to white people with guns.
Its says,"…you can shoot/beat/stab/rocketlaunch/BFG whomever is in the act of committing a felony crime against you and or someone else in your vicinity…".
In order to keep them from continuing to commit said crime against you or other parties…
There is no implication of gender, race, creed, religion or sexual preference.
For some reason people want all this repealed? :dubious:
Once upon a time, it “wasn’t racist” to give someone the death penalty for committing rape, either. But oops! It turns out that almost all the death sentences for rape were handed out to blacks raping whites, and comparatively very few for any other racial combination.
A law can be racist in its construction, or it can be racist in its implementation. It doesn’t matter if it’s the latter and not the former, it’s still racist.
No, you wouldn’t, would you?
I knew I should have saved that decoder ring from that cracker jack box at the rally. :rolleyes:
It wouldn’t have helped, but common sense might have.
FWIW, until today, I agreed this was why Zimmerman should be found guilty. (And, so, thought the verdict wrong.) Reading the IMHO thread linked by Measure for Measure, though, took me to this blog article by Eugene Volokh, which discusses the aggressor principle, which is what you’re referencing here. See also the official jury instructions in the case. I now understand the verdict.
By Florida law, as reflected in these cites, the aggressor principle only really comes into play if the defendant was committing a crime. Failing that, the principle more-or-less folds back into the familiar test of reasonable fear of imminent injury for self-defense generally. As to which, the evidence permitted the jury to conclude Zimmerman’s fear had not been disproved beyond a reasonable doubt. (The test in all states but Ohio.) I’m not happy with that outcome in this case, given Zimmerman’s racist motives, but it seems to be the correct result under Florida law.
BTW, Volokh says the duty to retreat had been circumscribed in a “supermajority” of states (citing a treatise) even before the advent of SYG laws. In any event, as others have argued, it doesn’t seem to have been a significant issue in the Zimmerman case, once one takes the narrow view of when to test his conduct.
:rolleyes:
For example, back in May, 34yr old Christopher Stanlane was cleaning his gun in the living room when it discharged. His 10yr old son, watching TV at the time, was shot in the head. He died. It’s a shame the father was working on a loaded gun in his living room that afternoon. He wouldn’t have had to bury his own son.
2-year-old Neegnco Xiong was shot and killed by his 4yr old brother, who found his daddy’s loaded gun under the pillows on the bed. It’s a shame that daddy had loaded, unsecured guns lying around the house. He wouldn’t have had to bury his little boy.
A five-year old New Orleans girl died from a gunshot wound to the head after playing with a gun found inside her home. It’s a shame the family had a gun in the house. They wouldn’t have had to bury their little girl.
Back on topic: I’m not 100% convinced the jury got the Zimmerman verdict ‘wrong’ - in the sense that, based on Florida law and the case the State presented, I’m not sure the jury could have arrived at any other conclusion. Personally, I think Murder 2 was clearly an over-charge, but based on the evidence and Zimmerman’s inconsistencies in his various, constantly changing statements, I do think reckless homicide / manslaughter was appropriate, if not necessarily provable in a court of law.
But let’s be clear: the Zimmerman trial wasn’t about ‘Stand Your Ground’. The law was never invoked, and in fact, since Zimmerman claims he was on the ground and unable to retreat, SYG is completely and utterly irrelevant.
The Zimmerman trial wasn’t about race, at least not in the way some would have you believe. Yes, I believe Martin ended up dead in large part because of certain assumptions Zimmerman made about a black teenager in a hoodie walking around at night - certain assumptions he almost certainly would not have made about, say, a middle-aged white man in a suit. But the case was was not about some guy ‘out to kill a black guy’.
No, the Zimmerman case was about guns. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this: if you are going to demand the right to carry around an object that exists solely to make it really really easy to kill someone, is it too much to ask that the rest of us are allowed to hold you to a standard of behaviour when determining how that object is used? Is it too much to ask that you be required to exercise common sense and good judgement in how you act while carrying a firearm?
There’s a reason the rest of the world looks at the US gun culture and shakes its collective head. The saddest aspect of the whole trial appears to be that Zimmerman’s actions that night define the base level of ‘good judgement’ required to have a CCW permit, according to US gun owners. It’s pathetic, tragic, and frightening.
Well put.
Well, yes. I don’t think private citizens should be able to use deadly force based on their subjective beliefs unless they have no alternative.
Let’s see how this plays out in a case on which a white man got out of his car to confront a group of back youth in their car, because. “I fucking hate thug music,” got into an argument with them, shot into their car, killing one if them because he felt threatened, and then went back to his hotel and ordered a pizza – http://www.policymic.com/mobile/articles/54339/black-17-and-shot-dead-in-florida-why-isn-t-jordan-davis-getting-the-attention-travyon-martin-is
Clearly, he’s innocent. You don’t have to wait until your head’s been slammed into a cement sidewalk to defend yourself.
My hope is the opposite of OP’s. I hope that the Zimmerman case will open eyes to see how easily people can be killed, with the killer not guilty, in America’s gun-crazed culture. We need to back off from SYG and other laws which encourage such homicides.
Reading this, one might think that aceplace57 is unaware that Trayvon Martin died in the encounter. I’m sure he is aware of that of course; is he aware how callous he sounds?
The questions have been beaten to death in other threads but, since I suppose aceplace57 or his defenders will want to repeat the obvious, I stipulate that the teenager should not have lost his temper when provoked by the wannabe. But I don’t understand the morality of those who are completely unconcerned about his death.
If you’re using the term “murder” in a non-standard way can you define how you are using it?
Are you asserting that the news article is a component of the FL statute? What component of the statute is racist as you claim?
Are you asserting that the law providing for self defense (as utilized by Zimmerman) or SYG laws in general are racist in construction or implementation? Perhaps as reality may have a liberal bias, so too perpetrators or victims of certain criminal acts may have disproportionate representation.
What alternative did Zimmerman have when Martin was on top of him? Do you conversely believe that non-private citizens *should *be able to use deadly force based on their subjective beliefs in spite of alternatives? I’m trying to understand the sentence construction here.
How would you construct the law that would yield a different result than what happened?
I wasn’t talking about Zimmerman. As I’ve already pointed out, he had no duty to retreat regardless of SYG.
Whoosh, of course?
Let me put it this way.
Imagine that, back before I’d heard about this, you’d asked me a hypothetical question: What would you do if some guy hauled off and threw the first punch before getting on top of you to ground-and-pound for the better part of a minute, bloodying you up and breaking your nose? “Well,” I’d say, “I’d do my level best to incapacitate the attacker, as swiftly and efficiently as possible.”
And if there was a gun in reach? “Well, I’d probably shoot my attacker, since it’d sure be awful for him to get a hold of it. I mean, he’s a throw-the-first-punch kind of guy, right? Who the heck knows what he’d do next? If all that’s at hand is a knife, I’d probably go for the stab. If all that’s at hand is a fist-sized rock, I’d probably hit him with it. This whole hypothetical is troubling me; I should probably start carrying a weapon.”
Well, it’s no longer a hypothetical; an attacker was killed by the guy he was on top of. “Is he signing autographs after the medal ceremony?”
Uh, there’s a racial angle. “Dude, I don’t care what color he is; he hit back when attacked? He did what I would’ve done? I’ll buy him a beer.”
And the attacker? “Um. I hope others learn from his example?”
Ok, ignore how it relates to Zimmerman. Do you conversely believe that non-private citizens should be able to use deadly force based on their subjective beliefs in spite of alternatives? I’m trying to understand the sentence construction here.
Not necessarily. I was simply specifying private citizens in view of the fact that law enforcement use of deadly force is judged by differing standards. If you prefer, pretend I said, “we need to retain the duty to retreat in self-defense jurisdprudence.”
Ok, that’s clear, thanks.
I respectfully disagree. SYG matters, even if there wasn’t an SYG hearing, because it was a factor in the police’s initial investigation. That is, the police had assumed that there need not be a criminal investigation at all because they say it as a SYG case. As a result, they did a poor investigation.
Look, I’m no expert criminaligist. All I know about it is what I’ve learned from Gibbs on NCIS. But as far as I know the police here violated Gibbs’ rule to immediately secure the crime scene because the police assumed it was an open and shut SYG case.