Posted on 05/10/2005 11:16:35 AM PDT by neverdem
Florida's "no retreat from criminals" law won't bring gunbattles in the streets.
Professional doomsayers are having something of a field day, fomenting hysteria over recent passage in Florida of a law that lets citizens defend themselves against criminal attack without first making an attempt to flee.
The Sunshine State's "No Duty to Retreat," or "Stand Your Ground," law is not a novel concept, although it is hardly universal in the land of the free and home of the brave. In my home state of Washington -- where our state constitution explicitly guarantees "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired" -- the state Supreme Court has twice affirmed in recent years that there is "no duty to retreat."
The principle in both cases -- State v. Studd (1999) and State v. Reynaldo Redmond (2003) -- is unambiguous. "The law is well settled," said the court in the Redmond ruling, "that there is no duty to retreat when a person is assaulted in a place where he or she has a right to be."
Obviously, the anti-self-defense crowd has a problem with this concept. Rather than support the right of any law-abiding citizen to defend himself or herself when attacked in any place where that citizen has a legitimate right to be, opponents of this law would appease criminals, thus encouraging recidivist behavior.
In their zeal to portray "Stand Your Ground" as a philosophy of Dirty Harry wannabes, gun-control groups and some misguided police officials are using the same tired, thoroughly discredited rhetoric about "Wild West gunfights" and "blood in the streets" that they used when Florida, and more than two dozen other states, passed right-to-carry laws. Those predictions never came true, and they won't now. Forecasts of murderous road rage or increased danger to children are products of the same fantasy world from which silver-screen Western shoot-'em-ups sprouted.
Frankly, we all should want Florida's streets to resemble neighborhoods in the Old West. A little research would explain why. Historians Richard Shenkman and W. Eugene Hollon have written about real violence in the frontier West, noting, for example, that in 1878 -- the heyday of cattle-drive boomtowns -- Dodge City recorded just five homicides.
In a February 2004 essay appearing on lewrockwell.com, Colorado policy analyst and Internet columnist Ryan McMaken noted that "All the big cattle towns of Kansas combined saw a total of 45 murders during the period of 1870-1885. Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 1876-1885, an average of 1.5 per year."
Compared with the landscape between Tallahassee and Miami, the real West was comatose.
Although citizens in Washington state have no duty to retreat from a violent attack, it is also well established that this does not mean they have the latitude to thrust themselves unnecessarily in harm's way. Responsible, legally armed citizens are not a problem, in Washington, Florida or anywhere else.
Our experience in Washington dates back generations. It's certainly not spotless, but the Evergreen State is not awash in violence, either. Washington, which has had a right-to-carry statute for many years, also has one of the highest per-capita numbers of legally licensed armed citizens.
Instead of giving the hysterics a free pass to promote fear about Florida's new law, perhaps the press should ask these people point-blank, "What's wrong with defending yourself from criminal attack in a place where you have a right to be? Why should people be vulnerable to lawsuits filed by criminals they shoot in self-defense? Why do you advocate what is essentially a surrender of public places to predatory thugs?"
Self-defense is not "taking the law into your own hands." Rather, it is acting within the law in the face of imminent and unavoidable danger of grave bodily harm or death. Arguing otherwise, with unsustainable predictions of bloody lawlessness, will ultimately prove just how wrong the gun-control extremists have been.
Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week (www.gunweek.com) and author of the book Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities. This column was originally published in The Providence Journal.
The only aspect of this legislation that will cause undue harm is the exploding skulls of gun-grabbers & pacifists, whose donated organs will be put to good use. :-)
An armed man is a citizen and un-armed man is a subject...
This is a nice response to the hysterical screed published in last week's Time magazine predicting ankle deep blood on the streets of Florida.
Sounds like a win-win proposition to me.
It's a shame that anybody has to be told that they have a right to defend themselves.
Sorry, my arthritis won’t allow me to flee.
I'm in MO and would be interested in knowing how my state stands.. ( no pun intended )
Exactly the thing I needed--just found a young mind in NY that may be swayed to our side. And we know NY needs all the help it can get. Thanks a million!
Probably the best place to look would be the site of any state-specific gun-rights organizations, your local NRA members council, or both.
Hope that helps,
As Rush might say: "They still have the old play book".
The 'Blood in the streets' 'Gunshine State' and 'Shootouts at street corners' predictions of the past will be just at discredited in the future as it has been in the past.
Let'em be hysterical, the shrill sounds and impotent whine from the left will once again be remembered and useful in getting sensible legislation passed in other states or (many hope) at the federal level.
bttt
I've met lifelong residents of Washington State who don't know self-defense is legal. Sometimes, I will show them my permit and tell them that my weapon hasn't jumped out of it's holster in the thirty years I've had it.
Their ignorance causes me no anxiety -- Why should they get nervous about my basic rights?
Because 25 years of leftmedia propaganda has completey brainwashed them.
Actually, speaking as a history teacher this is 100% correct. Moreover, one out of seven cowboys was in fact....black. So the Hollywood depiction of a "lilly white" frontier is a falsehood. Also citizens...armed citizens.....actively participated in LEO actions. That's why only a single Sheriff and a couple of deputies were needed even in fairly large cowtowns. Anytime a sheriff went in to arrest a bad guy, he was backed by the .30-30's (.44-40's or whatever) of the populace. Contrast that attitude of today's civilized liberal that says: I don't want to get involved... and you can see why our crime problem has grown steadily worse over the decades.
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