Posted on 04/11/2012 1:31:19 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Mayor Michael Bloomberg went down to Washington D.C. earlier today to advocate for limits to “Stand Your Ground” laws, made famous the recent shooting of Trayvon Martin, which allow looser standards for the use of deadly force. Flanked by representatives of groups like the NAACP and National Urban League, he announced a new initiative to push states, particularly Florida, to reform their self-defense laws.
“These laws are not the kind of laws that a civilized society should have,” Mr. Bloomberg said at the event. “This has nothing to do with gun owners’ rights, nothing to do with the Second Amendment. Plain and simple, this is just trying to give people a license to murder.”
“No civilized society that I know of, outside of America, has laws that permit anybody to just decide someone shouldn’t be alive, pull out a gun, shoot them, and get away with it,” he later added.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicker.com ...
Self-appointed aristocrats are like cockroaches: disgusting and persistent.
That's not necessarily true. If you '[]Initially provoke[] the use of force against' yourself, then the regular stand your ground rules don't apply to you, at least not under the Florida Stand Your Ground Act of 2005.
If you provoke the use of force then you can only invoke the use of deadly force or force likely to cause great bodily harm if you meet either the requirements of Florida Statutes 776.041(2)(a) or (b). You can't immediately invoke the normal Stand Your Ground provisions of 776.012(1).
Instead, now you have to reasonably believe that you're in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and then exahust every reasonable means to escape other than the use of deadly force or force likely to cause great bodily harm. Only then can you use the 776.012(1) force.
In the alternative, you have to completely withdraw from physical contact with the person with whom you provoked the assault and indicate clearly that you desire to withdraw and terminate the use of force, and the other party has to continue or resume the use of force such that it would otherwise entitle you to a 776.012(1) remedy.
Sound complicated? Well, it's because if you instigate that fight in the biker bar, you don't get the advantage of the regular Stand Your Ground rules, at least not in Florida.
(I’m assuming you ask them nicely)
But in this case look, Martins father lived right around the corner, he had EVERY right to walk down the street. He didn’t have a big screen TV strapped to his back. AKAIK, there were NO REPORTS that evening of break-ins or perps looking through windows.
Zimmerman could have simply stayed in his truck and waited for the police. At that time, there were NO life threatening events going on. No property crimes. Zero. Zilch.
I’m not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV, but seems to me Zimmerman has a bit of a paranoid streak to him.
Zimmerman also had every right to walk down the street, keep an eye on Martin, and ask him what he was doing.
It is not as if property crime were rare and uncommon in the neighborhood. Zimmerman had prevented at least one such crime and possibly more. It is not paranoia when people really are out to steal your property.
Your suggestion that Zimmerman could simply have remained in his truck is similar to saying that Martin could simply have gone to his father's girlfriends residence and gone inside. Both are true. Both are irrelevant.
Zimmerman had already called the police, who were on their way.
Given that, then what could he reasonably expect by leaving his truck armed EXCEPT a confrontation of some sort?
The fact that Martin put a whack on him proves he was totally unprepared and didn’t know his rear from a hole in the ground.
Look, I’ve been a gun owner since I was 8.
One time - ONCE - I was threatened and took it out. I didn’t point it or anything else, I just made it obvious I had it.
The threat retreated quite quickly with a pantload.
I’ve been a FReeper for 14 or so years and am a strong RKBA supporter.
But I am AMAZED at some of the comments I’ve read during this whole deal.
The main point about having weapons IS NOT to shoot or hurt someone.
It is TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING SHOT OR HURT!!!
I don’t claim to be an attorney.
However, my understanding of the law is this.
It allows a person behaving lawfully in a place where he has a legal right to be to defend himself without the “duty to retreat” found, not unwisely IMO, in common law. That is the only way it changes self-defense law. If there is no possibility for an attackee to retreat safely, SYG doesn’t come into play, as older self-defense law fully covers the situation (or not).
Up to the point where things turned physical between Trayvon and George, they both had a legal right to be where they were and neither had yet committed illegal acts. As far as we know.
Somebody started the fight. (Though if you’ve ever been around a high school fist fight or a bar-room brawl, the party responsible for “starting it” is not always easy to determine.)
At the point where things turned physical, one party was at that point guilty of assault, possibly assault with a deadly weapon. SYG does not apply to this person. Since the other person is being assaulted without any potential to safely retreat (probably) SYG also does not apply to him, since the laws of self-defense would have covered him prior to SYG.
Now there are some theoretical circumstances under which the party who initiated the fight can attempt to withdraw and go back into legal self defense mode if the other party continues the attack. It seems highly unlikely that this would apply in this case, since the whole fight and killing apparently took less than a minute.
All this discussion of who followed whom and said what to whom is pretty much irrelevant. The only thing that matters, AFAICT, is who started the fight. This person probably cannot claim self-defense, which of course means the other party can. I believe the probability is over 50% that Trayvon started the fight. But from available information, not a great deal more than 50% at this time.
As stated, I don’t claim to be an attorney, but that is my understanding at this point.
Of course, I initially thought this story was being truthfully reported by the MSMS, so what do I know? Hey, wannabee cop *sshole idiots with a gun do exist. I’ve even run into them. Unfortunately for the MSM, it appears George was about as far from this stereotype as one can get. Not that they care. He was carrying a gun, therefore he is by definition the second coming of NB Forrest.
Zimmerman had already called the police, who were on their way.
Given that, then what could he reasonably expect by leaving his truck armed EXCEPT a confrontation of some sort?
marktwain replies: He might keep the unknown person in sight so the police would know where to find him?
djf posted:
The fact that Martin put a whack on him proves he was totally unprepared and didn’t know his rear from a hole in the ground.
marktwain replies:
It is easy to criticize someone after the fact. You could as easily postulate that since he did not have his gun out, he had no animus toward or intention of shooting Trayvon Martin. Even if, as you postulate, he was unprepared, that does not make him culpable. I have seen people repeatedly blame others for not being perfect. It is an imperfect world, and everyone in it makes mistakes. The only people who do not make mistakes are those who do nothing.
djf posted:
Look, I’ve been a gun owner since I was 8.
marktwain replies:
Congratulations. You are in good company.
djf posted:
One time - ONCE - I was threatened and took it out. I didn’t point it or anything else, I just made it obvious I had it.
marktwain replies:
Yes, if Zimmerman had been allowed to open carry, under Florida law, which he was not, it might have diffused the whole situation.
djf posted:
The threat retreated quite quickly with a pantload.
I’ve been a FReeper for 14 or so years and am a strong RKBA supporter.
But I am AMAZED at some of the comments I’ve read during this whole deal.
The main point about having weapons IS NOT to shoot or hurt someone.
It is TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM GETTING SHOT OR HURT!!!
marktwain replies:
I, too have been amazed at the comments that I have read. The credulity of those accepting the MSM narrative has been surprising. Many have learned a great deal from it.
I think you summed it up rather well.
In a civilized society, this law wouldn't be an issue.
We do not know Trayvon threw the first punch. That is Zimmerman's story and the police were unable to prove otherwise with the evidence. That does not mean it's the truth, only that it can't be disproven.
Trayvon, were he alive, might have quite a different story to tell. But he can't tell his side, can he? Doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I never said the presence of the gun caused the fight. By George's own statement Trayvon became aware of the presence of the gun at some point during the fight and at that point George felt he had to shoot him to keep Trayvon from getting the gun. IOW, George had to escalate the level of violence to protect himself.
I find it quite easy to believe that at that same moment Trayvon also became aware he was in a fight for his life and attacked with greater intensity. I know I would.
They need to get those guns off the street before some innocent kid goes out for some Skittles and a game of Knockout King with his friends, and ends up dead.
I suspect that the reason he has a huge carbon footprint in Bermuda is so he doesn't have ot pay his fair share of taxes.
I commend your civil reply.
As I said above, some are trying to make this out entirely as a racial deal.
Some are trying to make this out as a cut-and-dried case of self defense.
It’s neither. It’s somewhere in the middle.
Tell ya what, I’d hide in a cave before I sat on that jury!
Has there ever been bloodshed during deliberations?
This ain’t looking good no matter how it ends.
The fact that it blew up into a giant mess has everything to do with race. If Trayvon had been white or (perhaps) Hispanic, this would have been a two-day story in the Orlando area only. The RTKBA folks might have put it in their reports of “good shoots,” but nobody else would have cared.
The only way I can see this being a case that is “really” about race is if we can prove Zimmerman’s actions were affected by how he perceived Martin’s race. And I very much doubt we can do that. Because I don’t think they were.
One fact that is beyond dispute is that the mainstream media are the biggest whores on the planet.
They totally thrive and profit on exactly this sort of thing, the bloodier the better.
Agree with that.
SYG does apply to that person in the events covered by Florida Statutes 776.041, and those events can happen in less than a minute. Hypothetically - and I'm not speaking about the Martin/Zimmerman situation, but you keep bringing up deadly weapons - I don't know how you intend to treat a struggle for a deadly weapon in your analysis,
At this point, you're having to throw in a non-definite 'probably' to assert your definite ''does not'. You don't have that leisure under the law.
I'll say it again. Stand Your Ground is available in Florida to an initial assailant under the circumstances found in Florida Statutes 776.041. I'm finished; have the last word and goodnight.
Now we know why murders are up in NY City.
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant.
Gotcha. For the law to apply if Zimmerman start the fight he would have to prove his belief he was in danger of death (or great bodily harm) was reasonable. And that he had exhausted all other means to avoid this result.
Thanks. I appreciate your assistance in understanding this law better. Sleep tight.
Now I'm more concerned than ever about this law. Sounds to me like a guy could intentionally start a fight and if he was losing it bad enough he could kill the opponent with a gun and claim self-defense.
As they say, that ain't right. Such a person should, IMO, be charged with something less than 1st degree murder, possibly. But he shouldn't just walk.
I'm speaking theoretically here, not specifically about the Zimmerman case.
Also "great bodily harm" is not specifically defined here. Does it mean paraplegia? Broken bones? Mild concussion? Black eye? A generalized *sswhooping? Broken fingernail?
Do you get a commission for every time you try to make that true?
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