OK, I'll take a swing at that pitch.
I'm a common law fan. In fact, I'm fanatical about it, because it incorporates over 1000 years of the study of unchanging human nature.
I can't wrap my head around the APPLICATION of SYG laws. The principle, or concept, is easy to understand - it's just the Castle Doctrine moved to the street.
The problem is that physical engagements that can lead to deadly force happen in lots and lots of ways AWAY from your castle.
To put it simply, if someone kicks in your door at 2am and you kill them, the presumption that you had nothing to do with it (that you have "clean hands") is obvious. Not to say that the law can't ask if, for example, the dead guy is your daughter's boyfriend - but a presumption in your favor, sure.
The common law doctrine outside your castle is "retreat to the wall" - which means, do your best to stay out of trouble, but if trouble follows you, engage your right of self-defense up to and including deadly force.
It seems to me that SYG laws, by taking away "retreat to the wall" not only protect you in the case of unprovoked assault (where conventional self-defense law should work) but also eliminate the "stay out of trouble" part of the common law, which is as wise today as it was in 1066.
I know you waive SYG if you are the aggressor - but what about situations like bar fights and street hassles where Solomon himself can't figure out who did or said what to set it off? I've always been taught, and I teach others, that carrying means you have MORE responsibility to avoid stupid conflicts. It seems to me that SYG weakens this important rule.
Can any Florida FReepers enlighten me about how it actually works?
The older self-defense standard, as it was actually applied, effectively presumed that someone using deadly force should be omniscient about what possibilities for safe retreat might exist; prosecutors would sometimes argue that a person should have retreated unless that person could demonstrate that doing so would have exposed the person to some particular identifiable danger. By my understanding, SYG says that if an assailant's actions suggest a level of malice which would not be diminished by retreating, one need not make a vain effort to do so. One wouldn't have to identify a particular risk of retreating if one could demonstrate a reasonable belief that it wouldn't solve the conflict.