Posted on 05/01/2012 4:59:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
With three children under the age of 13 in his home, a father has a message for the task force that on Tuesday began reviewing the state's public safety laws: "Nobody in this house will be a victim in the middle of the night. If you break into my home, someone else will carry you out.
"I love the idea that the law allows us to protect ourselves."
•With a son recently shot to death during a traffic confrontation gone horribly wrong, a father is hopeful that the governor's task force will take a long, hard look at the state's "stand your ground" law. "There are so many unclear areas with this law that allow the person left alive to claim they were standing their ground," he says. "They could have been poking, prodding, provoking and pushing another person to their limit. "And then they claim self-defense when they kill them."
•Which argument do you prefer? The one from the father protecting his small children or the one from the father grieving for his adult son? This is the challenge facing the governor's task force, which will dissect a law that was created in the name of public safety but has the potential to escalate violence.
No matter where your loyalties lie, there is no perfect solution. Even if you disagree with the law, it is still hard to argue against the concept of self-defense. And if you are a staunch supporter of "stand your ground," you have to admit that loopholes do exist.
The question is, What to do with an imperfect law? Wipe it off the books? Tighten the loopholes? Leave it alone?
An independent task force created by state Sen. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, recommended an overhaul of the law Monday, but the group of legislators, lawyers and law-enforcement officials could not agree on whether it should be repealed.
The basic problem - and the heart of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case - is figuring out when an aggressor becomes a victim and vice versa.
A week ago, state Rep. Jim Frishe, R-St. Petersburg, was certain that the law did not apply for Mr. Zimmerman because evidence suggested that he instigated the confrontation by following Mr. Martin. Rep. Frishe, who supports the law, now concedes that Mr. Zimmerman might have a defense if he proves that he tried to withdraw from the confrontation after initially provoking it.
It is part of the conundrum of a law known as "stand your ground" that you are permitted to be the aggressor as long as you later retreat. "There are some hoops you have to jump through if you start out as the aggressor," Rep. Frishe said. "I think that's why Zimmerman was charged."
And so we're back to our original premise: Do you side with the father who says the law has merit or the one who believes that it is ripe for abuse?
And does it matter that Kevin Lindsay is the father in both cases?
His son, Brandon Baker, confronted a driver who was tailgating him in Pinellas County and was pepper-sprayed and shot after allegedly punching the other driver through an open window.
"It's a bittersweet law, an odd coupling of ideas," Mr. Lindsay said. "I agree with the philosophy, but it needs to be picked apart and fixed."
I walked in and asked him who he was, and why he was there. Turned out it was ok. He was a contractor.
Was I the agressor? When my neighbor had asked me to keep an eye on her place while the fire damage is being repaired?
And yes, I was carrying concealed.
/johnny
At least in America, the real law acknowledges that you have a pre-exisiting right to protect yourself as a human being.
Federal administrative policies, however, tend to vary in the extent and conditions under which they grant this privilege to corporate individuals.
No, I don’t believe so, especially considering that opportunists have been known to take advantage of such situations.
The article is loaded with statist presumptions, as follows:
“His son, Brandon Baker, confronted a driver who was tailgating him in Pinellas County and was pepper-sprayed and shot after allegedly punching the other driver through an open window.”
Sonny Boy initiates a fight and gets shot. But the presstitute thinks this is wrong.
Call the Waaahmbulance!
One does not have the right to start punching another person. They may or may not be able to defend themselves in a fist fight - there is no reason for them to have to submit to a beating.
Had the Daddy acculturated his spawn, he would still be alive.
Rep. Frishe, who supports the law, now concedes that Mr. Zimmerman might have a defense if he proves that he tried to withdraw from the confrontation after initially provoking it.
As I understand it. Mr. Zimmerman NEVER talked to Trayvon Martin until Trayvon confronted Mr. Zimmerman as he was going back to his car having lost sight of Trayvon as he dodged between the buildings.
The article misses the obvious.
It assumes that people who are obnoxious and aggressive will continue to be so when lots of people have weapons. But this is not the case.
The saying, “An armed society is a polite society” is *very* accurate. Because implicit in that statement is “...or else”.
As an example, a man and a woman are arguing, and he calls her a foul name and acts in a threatening manner towards her. Then another man intercedes and says to the man, “Don’t you talk that way to a lady!”
In an unarmed society, the angry man is likely to turn his upset towards the man who interceded. More foul language or even violence. He is made even angrier.
But in a heavily armed society, the angry man will abruptly cool his jets. He *will* settle down, because he will realize that he is in a ‘risk’ situation with an unknown that could be very dangerous. Suddenly his butt is on the line.
Now his interest is *not* in his fight with that woman, but in this stranger before him who has just given him an order, and may very well have the means to enforce it. Most of the time, his new goal will be to defuse the situation.
There is even a good chance that he will appeal to her to reassure the stranger that all is well, that there is no problem.
In the average society, this is what you see when a police officer intervenes in a situation. The people involved quickly become a lot more peaceful. But in a heavily armed society, anyone taking an authoritative and purposeful stand can fill that role.
The assumption has to be that they can “back their play”.
I doubt he would claim that a white person would be entitled to attack a black person just because he saw that person staring at him.
I agree completely.
If I failed my son by preventing his expression of unrestrained anger, I must accept the consequences of my failure.
The anger-management kid deserved what he got. Chasing another driver and punching him through a car window is not a sign of expected mental health.
However, you are exactly right. He should have had the self-control to have refrained from punching the other driver. That was stupidity. Being stupid is well-known to be highly associated with getting oneself killed.
Keeping family and clan names straight is engrained deep in our tribal evolution. When we cannot even keep that straight anymore, how are we going understand subtle ideas like, when you start punching a driver through the open window of his car, and then get pepper sprayed it is time to get a clue and not wait for the follow-up gunshot. But I guess once that deep wiring of the brain that not only keeps friends and possible enemies straight shorts out, other survival instincts go haywire has well.
I think liberal disease is a genetic defect.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.