Duty to retreat vs stand your ground and castle laws: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

[Major Nikon]

66. Perhaps you can read, but I'm seriously doubting your ability to comprehend

No, you cannot "shoot unarmed people" except in very narrow circumstances.

Which means you can "shoot unarmed people", which means you didn't contradict me, yet pretended to contradict me. Furthermore, the circumstances aren't nearly so narrow as you pretend.

Here's exactly what the law says, which you claimed to read, but apparently can't or won't understand:

(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

...

(3) 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.

So all the "narrow circumstances" you claim to apply, amount to little more than if the person believes they are at risk of bodily harm or they believe a "forcible felony" is being committed. Those aren't "narrow" circumstances. Those are circumstances you can drive a Mack truck through. And what you don't seem to be able to comprehend is that rather than holding people accountable if they choose to use deadly force, the law requires the DA to prove the person believed the taking of human life wasn't necessary. This is an almost impossible standard, especially if the only other witness is dead.

Your assumption that shooting unarmed people is always unjustified is false. There are many situations where shooting an unarmed person is justified. Police and citizens justifiably shoot unarmed people all the time.

Now you're just going down the road of bullshit mongering. Read what I wrote, which you even copied. I never claimed shooting unarmed people is "always unjustified", nor did I suggest as much. I said it allows people to do so and in fact this has happened many times, just as I said. So unlike your unlikely and ill related scenarios, the very things I'm telling you are happening ARE happening. And it wasn't as if they weren't completely predictable.

That in itself proves little. Think about it; after the original Castle Law were initiated, wouldn't you expect that killing of home invaders went up in England (or wherever that legal principle originated)? Then they went down.

The examples not only prove it can happen, it proves it does happen. Did you think I was just bullshitting you when I said I had examples? You claimed to have read the link I provided. It appears you didn't.

The original "Castle Law" came from 17th century England. I seriously doubt you have relevant statistics from the time, but even if you did it would prove nothing once the simple principle of correlation does not imply causation is applied. Home invasions went down in Florida after 2005, but they also went down everywhere else and had been going down since 2000. There's no reason to suspect the NRA authored law in Florida had any effect whatsoever. I can see how someone who believes fringe nut LaPierre's bullshit talking points(not sayin you, just sayin many are) might be swayed by such meaningless statistics, but most people who have the cognative ability of a garter snake wouldn't be so easily convinced. Furthermore the "Castle Law" as the name implies, refers to your castle, not pretty much the whole state of Florida as that law applies.

The assumption that I'm a criminal is implicit in the assumption that I am offering you violence. Think it through. If you are minding your business and I threaten your life or limb, I am a criminal.

OK, so either you didn't read the law, or you have no hope of understanding it, or you're simply parroting LaPierre. Read the law again, slower this time. Nowhere in the law is the requirement that the person you shoot be a criminal, or "offering you violence", or anything even remotely close to what you're claiming. You just have to have the belief that they are "offering you violence" or you believe they are in the commission of a forcible felony. Belief does not equal reality, and it's a nearly impossible standard to prove.

Should I, by offering you violence, be able to make you leave any public place (as long as you can safely retreat)? Why do you find it necessary to avoid that simple question?

There is no simple yes or no answer to that question as you pretend. The answer is, it depends. Furthermore your question does not even come close to addressing what happened to Trayvon Martin and lots of other people who were innocent, but got shot anyway by clueless gun crazy yahoos.

Instead of dreaming up hypothetical situations, why don't you take a look at real people in real situations who are getting shot while their shooters are walking the street freely. Try looking up David James, who wasn't "offering violence" to a man who got into an argument with him, pulled a gun, and shot him in front of his daughter. Michael Frazzini wasn't "offering violence" when he was killed in his mother's back yard by a neighbor. Billy Kuch wasn't "offering violence" when he got drunk and knocked on the wrong door. He put up his hands and the homeowner shot him through his liver. Not only was none of the shooters convicted, but their family members can't even sue the shooters all thanks to this fringe nut LaPierre authored law which you think is a baby not to be thrown out.

So should those shooters(and many others) be able to walk freely with no risk of criminal or civil penalties? Try answering that much more relevant question without avoiding it.