Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: What a novel idea! [View all]gejohnston
(17,502 posts)Everyone agrees with "gun control", the disagreement is to what degree. On the federal level, the US has had gun control since 1927 (or 1919 if you want to include the 11 percent tax). The state level since the founding (mostly in the South and the four slave states that stayed in the union.) There are some who want a complete prohibition and private firearms (there are DUers who posted supporting that view). The other extreme, which is smaller or probably doesn't exist, is that a nine year old should be able to use his or her parents' credit card to order a sub-machine gun from Amazon like it was 1933, test it out in the back yard (in Queens) before taking to school for show and tell.
For me, any regulation must be based on empirical evidence and reason. Emotion, baseless opinion, ideology etc have no place in forming public policy. Only facts, evidence, and reason should be used. I expect that from politicians and whoever supports any legislation.
My question is: why do you think we need to "rethink it"? Is it based facts, evidence, or reason? The only problem I have with SYG is how the lazy and unethical media (along with various ideologues) misinforms the public about it. The only difference, and I do mean the ONLY difference is the retreat requirement (and only then if you can do so in complete safety.) Do you think it will save innocent lives? No, it will send innocent people with a lousy lawyer to prison. Can you name as single case that would was justifiable under SYG that wouldn't have under DTR? I can't, not even in Florida. I bet you can't either. In either theory, all of the same five conditions must be met in order to be justifiable.
http://lawofselfdefense.com/the-five-principles-of-the-law-of-self-defense-in-a-nutshell/
BTW, if you really want to be well informed about US self defense laws, I highly recommend his book. He is one of, if not THE, leading expert on US self defense laws. When I look for information, I go to subject area experts (regardless of their their personal views on anything. They either know what they are talking about, or they don't.) not some 20 something blogger for HuffPo who might have a degree in creative writing, who got his or her information from a press release or Twitter feed.
Also, how about defense of others? would you go by the "reasonable person" standard or the "alter ego" standard?