A Little Discussion on Stand Your Ground Laws

AnonymousJuly 19, 2013 at 11:06 AM The point of the stand your ground laws was to prevent people who engaged in self defense from being wrongfully convicted of murder or manslaughter. They were passed in reaction against cases where prosecutors were pushing juries to second guess whether there was some avenue of retreat that might have worked when evaluating situations with the benefits of hindsight rather than asking if the person reasonably feared for their life, which is the traditional legal standard.
Maybe this reaction went too far--I'm open to hearing actual suggestions for better solutions to that problem. On the other hand, constantly calling them "get away with murder laws" and claiming that they were passed to sanction vigilantism is dishonest, idiotic, and getting old and tired. ReplyDelete
Replies

1. Mike BJuly 21, 2013 at 12:26 PM That's not what the point is. It's about an adolescent, school-yard concept of not backing down. Previously the self-defense laws required a person to retreat if possible in order to avoid shooting someone. But, that was too unpalatable for the macho assholes behind the SYG movement to swallow. Backing down is not manly, especially when you're in the right. It's a pride-driven distortion of what's right and it completely loses sight of the fact that the lives of bad guys, being human lives, are valuable too. Delete