Stand Your Ground

[Hitchens]

On the surface, Stand Your Ground laws make sense. Those who defend themselves legally and legitimately should be protected from frivolous lawsuits from criminals and their families.

But is there a middle ground between Stand Your Ground and protecting those who defend themselves? Is it a good idea for untrained civilians to take on the role of police? I'm not sure.

What do you think?

[Black Jesus]

We need a Right to Pursue amended to the constitution.

But trolling aside, stand your ground is the most sensible law on the books only hippie shitbag gungrabbing socialist liberals would argue against. When a gaggle of naggets is beating your head in, do you reach for your cell phone?

[Hailto]

I reach for my penis, im a sadomasochist.

[Sirken]

in theory and on paper its a good law.

but like many good things, it can be taken advantage of.

id be curious to see the stats comparing how often whites get away with murder (legal or illegal) based on the "stand your ground" law, compared to how often blacks or hispanics get away with murder based on the same law.

i'd bet my position on staff that they aren't even close.

[Black Jesus]

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[Lexical]

Stand your ground laws hold a special place in my heart as they empower the individual and not the masses. However, they are abused by the people enforcing these laws which leads to a lot of corruption. The main thing to consider when viewing a law is does it make logical and theoretical sense in relationship to your governing philosophy and how does that affect the masses and establish better progress. (By your governing philosophy, I mean the most general and abstract stance you take on human existence: is a humanity a community or an aggregate of individuals)

Good luck! **hug**

[Elmarnieh]

The stand your ground laws have been greatly misrepresented by the media which draws viewership by sensationalism. The only thing these laws do is remove the duty to retreat from any place one is legal to be - they grant no extra leeway in using lethal force on others.

[Hitchens]

The only thing these laws do is remove the duty to retreat from any place one is legal to be - they grant no extra leeway in using lethal force on others.

In a civilized society, I think people do have a duty to retreat from a deadly situation if they are able to do so.

There is a distinct difference between advocating vigilantism and protecting people from litigation after defending themselves.

Just my view.

[Tecmos Deception]

On the surface, Stand Your Ground laws make sense. Those who defend themselves legally and legitimately should be protected from frivolous lawsuits from criminals and their families.

But is there a middle ground between Stand Your Ground and protecting those who defend themselves? Is it a good idea for untrained civilians to take on the role of police? I'm not sure.

What do you think?

There is a enormous difference between not having to flee from a criminal before you are allowed to use deadly force to defend yourself and taking on the role of the police.


In a civilized society, I think people do have a duty to retreat from a deadly situation if they are able to do so.

There is a distinct difference between advocating vigilantism and protecting people from litigation after defending themselves.

Just my view.

1. Whether we live in a "civilized society" is open to debate.

2. I'm sure you already know the arguments against retreat being required, and how "if they are able to do so" is the kind of phrase upon which lawyers make bank.

3. I don't think vigilante justice should be discussed in this context, since "not having to retreat from an unlawful and dangerous threat when in a place that you are legally allowed to be" has basically nothing at all in common with "unlawfully taking the role of law enforcement into one's own hands."

[Tecmos Deception]

I'd like to hear your arguments in favor of an obligation to retreat.

[stormlord]

In my view you have to look at it on a case by case basis, since there's so much crossover. What I mean by this is that distinguishing between defending yourself and aggressively defending yourself is tricky. In war and in all manners of conflicts and even in sports and in other competitions there're numerous examples of how offensive measures are seen as defensive in nature. In basketball they will often throw around the phrase "the best defense is a good offense". People may use different justifications for their actions and there might in fact be past relations with the attacker that would warrant them being suspect themselves. I just see a lot of gray here and I think that any attempt to neatly wrap all this up in a law is too tyrannical and prone to error.

There's wisdom in granting people freedoms and not just making everything either legal or illegal. There're just too many unique circumstances. People need freedom to react to all these different possibilities.

The idea that justice has to be perfect is I think an inhibiting conception. I cannot see how it will ever be so. Thus I cannot imagine any given situation always leading to a positive ending. In this I mean that the defender might make a mistake or a misjudgment. Viewed from the angle of somebody who thinks justice should be perfect, this might place the defender squarely in the suspect category - which is silly.

Nature has a way of straightening us out if we become too extreme in our approach. The problem is it can hurt a lot. It's always a race between ourselves and the balancing mechanism(s) of nature. If they fall behind or come out ahead then something bad usually happens and there's lots of shared consequences.

[Raavak]

Being forced to retreat *out* of your own home seems like an absurd concept to me. Where you sleep should be a place that you should feel safe in... stand your ground /castle doctine laws reinforce that concept.

[Hitchens]

1. Whether we live in a "civilized society" is open to debate.

It is a fact that we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' brief history. This is not an opinion. This is a fact backed up with data.

2. I'm sure you already know the arguments against retreat being required, and how "if they are able to do so" is the kind of phrase upon which lawyers make bank.

Yes, yes. Everyone hates lawyers until they need one.

3. I don't think vigilante justice should be discussed in this context, since "not having to retreat from an unlawful and dangerous threat when in a place that you are legally allowed to be" has basically nothing at all in common with "unlawfully taking the role of law enforcement into one's own hands."

The context is entirely appropriate, as the only thing that makes it legal to not be obligated to retreat, is (in my opinion) based on a flawed premise. If Stand Your Ground laws applied to private property and private property alone, I would agree. They do not, therefore I cannot.

Life is not an action movie and the average citizen is not Charles Bronson.

[Hitchens]

Being forced to retreat *out* of your own home seems like an absurd concept to me. Where you sleep should be a place that you should feel safe in... stand your ground /castle doctine laws reinforce that concept.

No one has made the argument that you should be obligated to retreat from your own home or private property, but red herring noted.

[Tecmos Deception]

My semantics regarding civilized and most peaceful and all that aside, I'd still like to hear why you think I should be required to flee if at all possible.


Sidenote - I like how almost everyone sees that word, semantics, and thinks it is a bad thing, when all semantics is is the study of meaning. "It's just semantics" is about the dumbest shit anyone can possibly say. WTF else do we have if we don't have meaning in the things we say and do PLUS an understanding of what someone else means when they say or do something?

[Auditore]

we got kids in south america killng taxi drivers to see if it's as easy as GTA 4 and ur worried about this

black kid shouldnt have brought skittles to a gunfight

[Jimes]

We can debate what the law should say, but put a gun in someone's hands and have a crazy person coming at them, and the debate will end pretty quickly. When it comes down to it, your life is all you really have and you will do whatever it takes to defend that, laws be damned.

[Daldolma]

Stand your ground is drastically misrepresented. It's an element of self defense.

It merely eliminates an obligation to retreat. An obligation to retreat is absurd, anyway. Faced with an imminent threat of violence, a person has a justifiable right to defend himself/herself by any means necessary. There is absolutely no reason to ask that person to attempt to retreat or face legal consequences. If a guy with a ski mask hits me in the head with a pipe and I have a gun, I'm not going to challenge him to a race and see who wins.

The application of the stand your ground law can be imperfect because it has grown to account too much for perception. Just because someone is perceived as a threat shouldn't grant you the right to use deadly force. In my estimation, the law should be corraled to only protect those who have used force against someone actively engaged in unlawful and dangerous behavior. This is also a state-by-state matter. Some states enforce this law extremely well. Others, not so much.

If this is being discussed in the context of Trayvon, stand your ground is not being abused.

[Black Jesus]

Stand your ground is a noble law to protect self defense from weasely lawyeryness. Right to pursue would be closer to the vigiliantism you refer to.

[Tecmos Deception]

Where'd you go Hitch? You started the topic and gave your opinion without ever really explaining why.

As far as I can tell, you approve of the castle doctrine but feel that stand your ground laws basically apply the castle doctrine everywhere instead of just at home... and that that goes to far. Do you feel that more rights are likely to be infringed by "untrained civilians" not being required to retreat in public places than would be infringed by criminals who know their quarry is legally prohibited from fighting back unless it is truly a last resort?

I don't understand how you can equate someone not being required to flee from a deadly threat with that person taking the law into his own hands. I don't understand why you think that Stand Your Ground isn't the middleground between flight and pursuit. The "Taken" movies are someone taking the law into his own hands. Batman takes the law into his own hands. Etc. But when was the last time the news covered someone who actively tracked down someone who wronged him and killed him and then also got off because of a stand your ground law? Lol.

[Hollywood]

There's some good comments on SYG and Castle Doctrine over at Straight Dope's Martin/Zimmerman thread - particularly across pages 170-180

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=648744