Ohhh Okay --
"Stand Your Ground" provides immunity from prosecution for people who may have had an opportunity to retreat but choose not to do so.
You have the right to SYG in your home and your car but not in a theatre with a No Weapons Allowed sign on the front door that you are in violation of by sneaking your weapon in.
The burden is on the prosecution to prove that self-defense was not justification for the shooting.
self defense from what?? -- a thrown bag of popcorn.
Even his lawyer knows that that is ludicrous especially since after he threw it, he was all out of popcorn -- essentially unarmed.
Now the shooter has the popcorn -- if it was such a deadly weapon then why didn't he pick it up and throw it back??
I think you are confusing "Stand Your Ground" with "Castle Doctrine". My understanding of Florida's Stand Your Ground law is that one is not obligated to retreat from anyplace that one has a right to be, subject to exceptions if law-breaking is going on.
Stand Your Ground simply removes the obligation to retreat if a reasonable person would think it possible to do so safely. Stand Your Ground does not in any other way change the circumstances in which self-defense is justified, including self-defense with a deadly weapon.
The Sheriff has the cart before the horse. If he wanted to say something meaningful, then he should have stated that self-defense with a deadly weapon was not justified. In such a case, Stand Your Ground is irrelevant.
As for whether the "No Weapons" sign changes anything, that depends very much on the state's weapons and trespassing laws. In Texas, for example, if you wish to exclude people carrying concealed weapons, you are obligated to post signs at all entrances and there are specific wording and formatting requirements. Otherwise, the sign has no effect.
Furthermore, there are additional laws which permit the carrying of weapons by ex-cops which may or may not have permitted the shooter to have his weapon in the theater. Other than the shooting, did the shooter break any laws that would have excluded him from Stand Your Ground protection?
Fine. Some criminal assaults don't justify deadly responses. Some do.
There is no requirement that an attacker be armed in order to justify believing that great bodily harm or death is imminent.
Do you think the "knock out" players are entitled to a punch? Are they deserving of being shot? Some idiot went after a guy at a bus stop with a stun gun and was shot for it. Was that wrong? Should the man at the bus stop have spent some time trying to figure out whether the attack would continue?