>> Am I to believe the stand your ground law is different in FL than it is in TX?
I looked into this a couple days ago with CBoldt’s help.
TX and FL statues are similar in some ways but different in others. Some of the differences seem subtle but are important.
One apparently subtle difference is in the way TX views “fearing danger” (for lack of a better term).
FL requires “fear of death or great bodily harm” before you’re allowed to use “deadly force” in “defense of person”. They define “deadly force” (a firearm is automatically that) but they don’t define “great bodily harm”, they leave that up to case law but there are guidelines.
What being in your Florida “castle” buys you is a “presumption” of fear of great bodily harm. That presumption, as CBoldt pointed out, can be twisted around and negated in court though.
Texas says “a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor [that would be you] reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other’s [that would be the punk] use or attempted use of unlawful force.”
So you can see that Texas doesn’t require anything like “fear of death or great bodily harm”. Subtle but important.
There are other differences as well.
FL self defense law link: http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2012/Chapter776
TX self defense law link: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm
Link to our thread (CBoldt has some good comments there): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3040547/posts?page=45#45
FRegards
“Texas says ‘a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor [that would be you] reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other’s [that would be the punk] use or attempted use of unlawful force.’”
Yes. . .but to be clear, you have a right to fight back but if you use deadly force you have to be in fear of your life or the life of another.