Um, not to the person that's dead. And to the person who killed them that now doesn't have to face the consequences.
No if the law changed that anyone you kill is justifiable homicide then murder would disappear and justifiable homicide have a huge increase. But murder wouldn't be going up, just justifiable homicide so it would be OK. The problem is changing what is acceptable when killing someone will make more things seem justifiable homicide even when they aren't actually justifiable. The fact that more deaths are called justifiable after the law was passed and it is horrible. Whether they happened from a gun or not doesn't really matter.
You have still not answered why you think this is bad and you are assuming things. Do you even know what the statistics you quoted mean? Are they including law enforcement? Did the increase coincide with a decrease in criminal homicide convictions? How would those homicides been categorized before the law? Criminal and unsolved?
You are the only one talking about it being from a gun or not because you foolishly mixed up gun related deaths and justified homicides.
Obviously your hypothetical is correct, if irrelevant. The statistics you are using to prove that the law is bad don't prove that is the point. The statistics are only bad if you think there should be less justifiable homicides. If in fact homicides that most people wouldn't call criminal were being treated that way, those statistics make this law look good.
I'm talking about it being and not being from a gun, because both you and justtxyank said it made a difference.
No, we didn't. I said it is a huge difference between gun related deaths (what you originally totally messed up) and justified homicides. more Gun related deaths = more people are dead. (as opposed to alive) Justified homicides = more homicides are classified as justified. You don't realize this was the point of the law. You don't realize what the increase means. You have not researched what a justified homicide is. You probably thought it mean 3 times as many people are dying, which is why you said that in your first post.
I don't agree with that at all. You should look to retreat, if possible, once you feel you are under threat (again if possible). That is what I advocate and my understanding of the common law is that it stipulates that. Stand your ground says that once you feel you are under threat you don't have to retreat. You are seemingly reading an absolute into what I am saying and what a retreat law is saying. It is saying that you should retreat if that is an option. If it isn't then you can resort to deadly force. True other states do a better job of defining that better but we are talking about the FL law here specifically and I am quoting the FL law verbatim. Anyway has noted most other states rely on a reasonable person standard which is inherently subjective. Yes you shouldn't put yourself in that position in the first place. That said though under free assembly and free speech we have the right to confront each other in public. Where it gets murky is how do you weigh that with a situation where the person might be a threat. Under a retreat law you should extricate yourself from that as soon as possible. Under stand your ground you don't have to. That is the difference. In one case reasonable retreat is the preferred option, under the other there is no legal basis for retreat.
No, as I explained in a previous post in this thread, it means that more deaths are called justifiable. I understand that full well, and I think it's horrible.
I am going to have agree a bit with Casey on this. The statistics you cite are unsettling but I would have to dig a bit more into them to see how much they are based on the change in the law. As I said I think this is a bad law and one that doesn't increase safety. Even with that though I think there is a question about how much those "justified homicides" were based off of people liberally interpreting this law or if there were other factors. Keep in mind that even without Stand Your Ground there are still instances that deadly force can be used under common law. Were most of these killings done in situations that would've applied under the previous law? I personally think there might be something there attributable to the change in the law but that is hypothesizing with limited evidence.
The if possible part is all I wanted to add. You didn't include it before but now we agree. If possible has always been the law, never was it "you have to make an attempt" But it has always been there and there is no way "feeling threatened" or "taking a swing" is a reasonable person's justification for deadly force. not "as soon as possible" but if possible. Retreat laws only come into play when deadly force is otherwise justified, we agree on this. Justification of deadly force come when the situation has gone WAY WRONG, we seem to disagree here because you are taking liberties with "reasonable person" that in practice are not valid and won't work IMO. With retreat laws, if you for instance, found yourself in a situation where retreating would put you at greater risk than fighting, my guess is you would choose to fight correct? Even if you were able to show in court that you were justified in using deadly force, you would still have to prove you were reasonable for not retreating. If they could show you had a "reasonable" chance to retreat don't you see how it would be hard to argue you thought you had a better chance of survival by NOT retreating? Isn't retreating against most instinct and inherently dangerous? Again these situations are when crap has already gone downhill. Not when people are shouting at each other, or pushing and shoving. This is after weapons are drawn, after receiving blows to the head neck or throat, being shot at. This is survival, not avoidance.
Let me change my situational question. Say someone has you loosely gripped around the throat or whatever and is wailing on your head. My guess is your instincts would be to put him on his butt. If he hits his head or breaks his neck and is dead, you would have to defend yourself as to why you didn't escape. To me that is wrong. Your chances of survival IMO (you tell me) are much higher with him down than with you running.
Having to go through the trouble of showing that you couldn't escape doesn't seem like too much to ask when a person is dead. That would be an accidental homicide. That sounds right to me. Or you could prove that you weren't able to escape. That is also correct to me.
It isn't accidental, in that situation he used violent deadly force against his attacker. The intent was to harm, even if intent was to harm in order to escape, it was still not accidental. And I never said he wasn't able to escape, I just said he hypothetically decided his chances of escape improved with his attacker on the ground rather than just running directly.
I understand that justifiable homicide is currently a reality without the stand your ground law. I don't think we need to make it easy for those instances to happen. I'm perfectly willing to listen to other causes for the increase in justifiable homicide cases happening after the institution of this law, then I'm open to that evidence as well.
The death wasn't intentional so that would be accidental. If he could have escaped and didn't, then I'd like to see the person face the consequences.
