Very Good Talk On the Stand Your Ground Law

[Sukerkin]

[video=youtube_share;irnD34P2l1w]http://youtu.be/irnD34P2l1w[/video]

Nice, well elucidated and quite succinct lecture laying out the basic foundations of the law around the right not to have to flee someone who threatens you or yours.

 

[billc]

Here is a look at a poll on the topic of SYG laws...


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/08/02/Media-fail-majority-support-stand-your-ground

A majority of Americans back so-called “stand your ground” laws, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Friday, though their views differ sharply by race.
Voters support “stand your ground,” which allows individuals to act in self-defense during a conflict without attempting to retreat, by 53 percent to 40 percent.
But the results break down over racial divides: White voters back “stand your ground” by 57 percent to 37 percent while black voters are opposed 57 percent to 37 percent.

It is unfortunate that everyone who benefits from "Stand Your Ground" doesn't support it:
The fact is that black defendants benefit from "Stand Your Ground" laws--especially because black people are more likely to be victims of crime. In 2009, for example, a black man, Demarro Battle, shot and killed Omar Bonilla (described as "white" by the Fort Myers police department), but charges were dropped because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. Numerous similar cases have occurred across the nation.
In her NPR story, Johnson cites statistics showing that white defendants benefit more often from Stand Your Ground laws. However, that is a misleading approach, because blacks still benefit disproportionately from "Stand Your Ground," at least in Florida. The Daily Caller notes today that blacks make up a third of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" cases, twice their proportion in the population of the state as a whole.

 

[billc]

The Florida Sherriffs association supports Stand Your Ground laws...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...ation-backs-the-State-s-Stand-Your-Ground-Law

[h=2]Earlier this week, Florida’s Sheriffs Association voted to support the state’s Stand Your Ground law in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman Trial.[/h]The association’s new president, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, announced it agreed to support the law without opposition as written. Tuesday’s voice vote came with 57 Sheriffs in attendance.
This is the first public stance the association has taken on the law since it was first passed in 2005. Sheriff Judd said in a prepared statement, "Our current judicial system is comprised of multiple checks and balances to ensure fair and equitable application of all laws, including 'stand your grounds.'”

 

[billc]

and a really bad take on these laws. one could...and should...call it out right lying...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archiv...merman-case-in-stand-your-ground-campaign.php

The CSGV text that accompanies the video is consistently false or misleading:


With “Stand Your Ground” (aka “Shoot First”) laws, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its partners in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have turned 3,000 years of jurisprudence on its head. Now you can provoke a fight, and if losing that fight, kill the person you attacked.


That is incorrect. The Florida statute is typical; stand your ground applies only if you are defending yourself after being attacked by someone else:


A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.


This part is wrong, too:


The NRA’s laws represent a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the use of force in the public space, allowing individuals to kill when they merely fear “great bodily harm” (i.e., a fistfight, shoving match, etc.).


The Florida statute, like all other stand your ground laws (and self-defense laws generally) requires that the person invoking the defense reasonably believe that he or she will suffer “death or great bodily harm.” And I don’t think you would want to try to convince a jury that a “shoving match” gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of death or great bodily harm.


This is misleading, too:


Additionally, “Stand Your Ground” laws remove the duty to retreat from a conflict in public, allowing individuals to shoot and kill even when they could otherwise walk away safely from an altercation.