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

[Major Nikon]

82. You failed miserably at trying to break it down

Cherry picking my statments and then making disengenuous claims regarding them, while completely ignoring other more relevant parts of what I wrote might make you think you're more credible, but actually the reverse is true.

So let me break it down for you using a healthy dose of reality...

I disagreed. The NAACP, the law's sponsor and many others disagree. Given the facts as presented by the media, the Stand Your Ground law did not allow Zimmerman to act as he did.

Since when does "like Zimmerman" mean 'Zimmerman'? Just another example of how you read, but don't comprehend.

I provided you numerous specific examples of obviously dubious self-defense claims where people have gotten away with never being convicted and in many cases were never so much as charged or arrested. So you can disagree all you want, you can pretend others agree with you, and you can pretend I didn't include the specific examples I included. That doesn't change reality.

Furthermore in regards to Zimmerman himself (which I wasn't talking about regardless of how many times you pretend I was), in case you haven't noticed, he has yet to be charged or so much as arrested. The Sanford police chief said the shoot first law tied his hands. Numerous sponsors and those who voted for the shoot first law say it needs to be changed. So no, there isn't the consensus you claim and there's little doubt that without the shoot first law, Zimmerman would have already been arrested and charged, just as he should be. As it is, he will almost certainly get off completely if he's ever charged at all, all thanks to the LaPierre authored law that you support. So you can keep claiming the shoot first law doesn't make a difference with Zimmerman if it makes you feel better. That doesn't change reality.

So let's go over your strawm.. er, points one by one...

So you are wrong several different ways:

1) SYG did not authorize what Zimmerman did, at least not what he did as reported in the national media.

Kinda hard to be wrong about something I never claimed, no?

I'm going to mark this one as complete bullshit.

2) SYG did not change the law so that you can now shoot unarmed people wheras before you could not shoot unarmed people. You could always shoot unarmed people under the proper circumstances, without any criminal repercussions. (SYG did remove civil repercussions, if I understand it correctly.)

Here we have another instance of you just claiming I wrote something I didn't so you can then refute it. This is known as building a strawman for you to burn down and must also be listed as complete bullshit.

3) The implication that "shooting unarmed people" is something that only an idiotic law would allow is itself idiotic. You should be able to shoot unarmed people with no criminal or legal repercussion, under the right circumstances.

Yes, sure you can. And if I had claimed you can't, you might actually have something there, but I didn't, and you don't. Sorry, but this one has to be chalked up to complete bullshit just like the rest.

Try reading exactly what I claimed, then instead of focusing on the word "unarmed" and inventing strawmen, try actually looking at the specific examples I have provided not once, but twice, which you have completely ignored and pretended didn't exist, not once, but twice. Then tell me again how this law doesn't specifically allow people to shoot those unarmed people in those exact circumstances. Tell me again how those people were "offering violence". Tell me again how this law didn't allow them to get away with murder at worst or manslaughter/aggravated assault at best, not to mention civil charges for the pain and suffering they caused. Again, specific examples which were used to illustrate my point in crystal clarity. Not hypothetical rhetoric you invented, not strawman BS, but specific examples. Try to stay focused. I know you can do this.

And your whole argument about belief is silly. First it's not simple belief, it's "reasonable belief." And if reasonable belief, or what a reasonable person would believe in a given circumstance were so hard to establish, the law as we know it would collapse.

Unless there is some special difference between reasonable belief in SYG and the prudent person standard or reasonable man standard, it's no big deal. Really.

Reasonable belief is not the simple belief that you keep representing it as. it has a well established legal meaning, unless I'm missing something. Didn't think I'd notice the dropped "reasonable" did you?

I quoted the relevant parts of the exact law, which you claimed to read, but obviously are only vaguely familiar. So I suppose you can pretend I dropped "reasonable" but anyone smart enough to work their way back up the thread can see your claim is bullshit. Pointing out that I didn't include the exact verbiage of the law every single time I mentioned belief, is disengenuous at best and duplicitous at worst.

And yes, there is "some special difference" between reasonable belief in the shoot first law and the "reasonable person" standard. Big difference. Damn big difference. So yes, it is a big deal. A damn big deal in fact.

Your confusion of the "reasonable belief" standard quoted by the shoot first law and the "reasonable person" standard from common law pretty much epitomizes your basic ignorance of jurisprudence and this law in particular. The "reasonable person" standard means a reasonable person would have acted the same under the same circumstances. This is nothing like the "reasonable belief" standard mentioned. Apparently the word "reasonable" is throwing you off because you're completly ignoring the difference between "person" and "belief". Once again this points to your basic comprehension difficulties. If the Florida shoot first law had a reasonable person standard (and it doesn't), this would be a much higher standard. "Reasonable belief" standard is even lower than 'reasonable self-control' and points to what the person in questioned believed. It doesn't matter if they are a complete idiot. It doesn't matter if they were wrong. It doesn't even matter if they behaved irresponsibly and/or irrationally. Their state of mind and what they "reasonably" believed is the only thing that matters, and for a jury or anyone else to guess the mindset of these people in these situations is dubious at best. That's why Zimmerman will almost certainly never be convicted of any state charges once he makes a claim of self-defense. That's why this law is fucked up. That's why people can get away with murder. That's why there is no "baby" in this law. It's all bathwater. If you can't understand that basic point, you have no hope of understanding what's wrong with this law.