Stand Your Ground

 

Recently passed stand-your-ground legislation is no doubt mostly motivated by the political grandstanding of legislators.  Never the less, I would stress that we should remember these few things:

 

1.      The primary mainstream objective of this type of legislation is to protect the law abiding both from prosecution for defending their home and themselves – “failing in their duty to retreat” – and from law suits brought by criminals after they were injured during the commission of a crime.  These are damned worthy objectives.

 

2.      Many states have versions of these laws including California and Massachusetts so it’s not really just about the NRA crazies. 

 

3.      And it’s not just about guns either.  If you hit a home invader with a bat, a carjacker with a tire iron or mace a purse snatcher or rapist – anywhere – you don’t want to be either sued or prosecuted no matter what happened to the perp.

 

4.      There is zero evidence, of any kind, that stand-your-ground legislation is about blacks in any way.

 

But here’s the rub as I see it.  Our legislators – mostly lawyers – don’t seem to have the competence to write laws any more. 

 

·         In Florida, drug dealers are able to shoot it out in the streets and claim immunity from all harm done, even to bystanders.

 

·         In South Carolina, a man murdered a home owner during a home invasion.  He admits to all of this but wants immunity from prosecution under the state’s stand-your-ground law because he was afraid the homeowner would kill him.

 

The SC State Supreme Court says he has a right to be heard in this argument.

 

Wouldn’t it seem obvious to you that there is no immunity for those committing a crime?  Doesn’t it seem equally obvious that we retain responsibility for all harm we do to bystanders?  It’s fine with me for drug dealers and gang bangers to kill each other and then go free to kill some more evil doers but if they harm innocents, that’s at least manslaughter and innocent victims should be able to sue them and maybe take away their gold teeth and Uzis.

 

Shouldn’t a legislator – let alone a lawyer – be able to get that into the law in the first place?

 

I hate bringing Martin/Zimmerman into this;  it was the South Carolina Supreme Court that got me to the keyboard.  But given the heat of the moment, it seems impossible for me to write this and avoid that case.  Consider this:

 

·         If your daughter maces an attacker, with no witnesses or cameras around, and the guys dies of an asthma attack or allergic reaction, what process and penalty do you want to apply to her?  Make it your son, who is white, and make the dead guy black.  Same question. 

 

·         We don’t know what exactly went down with Martin/Zimmerman but a jury has decided and some people would be very upset if Zimmerman was now headed to 30 years for manslaughter.  Innocent until proven guilty and the state has to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.  No witnesses means plenty of doubt and no way to convict.

 

·         If Zimmerman was not armed, I doubt that anybody would be dead.  But this is America.  Bad guys have guns and there is nothing anyone can do about that.  Good guys have guns too.  Personally, I like the line from a favorite movie called “Nobody’s Fool”.  A judge says that if we arm one moron, we have to arm them all.  That seems right.  Suck it up and focus on the things we can change.

 

·         The press and the activists made this case what it has become.  If it was just another case of black on black, nobody would take any notice.  Oh yeah and in Florida, the black neighborhood watch person would never have been prosecuted.

 

If you look at my Martin/Zimmerman comments, you’ll see that the majority have nothing to do with stand-your-ground legislation and the one that does suggests an important need for such laws.  How did we ever get to a place where self defense could be a crime or liability?

 

So let’s get the laws right and move on.