Florida, where murder is legal

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^^ *nods*

A blind drunk white man driving an auto 30 miles over the speed limit in traffic.

ruveyn

Chill Ruveyn, in this case we're talking shorthand, not euphemisms.

Just to follow up (since my dander is up), as a UK citizen you may recall that you lost your own gun rights one tragedy at a time. Every single major restriction came on the heels of some tragic shooting, with emotional appeals being used to override people's normal considerations and thought process. Same thing happened in Australia, they had one bad shooting and the antis pounced. It puts us US gun people on a constant war footing when it comes to counter-spin because it's like fighting terrorism; they only have to win once while we have to win every time. It gets tiring after a while.

So, am I to take it from this along with your "Hang 'em High!" comment that you're endorsing vigilante actions when not all the facts are in and there are still a ton of unknown factors? I could go further and ask if you and the NBPP (and Spike Lee apparently) are calling for a lynching, but that would seem a bit hyperbolic, which I try and avoid for the most part.

Considering the source, does it surprise you?

I will try to explain my views here to you.

If you take away the law that is administered by our elected government, you don't end up with an absence of law. If you take away taxes, you won't end up with an absence of people who think they have a right to tell you what to do with your money. Instead, the people who make the laws and the people who are taking and using your money will be people who came to power by means other than democratic election, such as rising in status in a criminal organization such as the Russian Mafia (which actually does a fairly good job of governing certain parts of Russia, compared to the "legitimate" government in Russia).

A real-world example of this is the formation of the CRIP gang. The CRIPs were not originally an overtly criminal organization, but the idea behind the CRIPs was to help control "freelance" thugs in certain parts of Los Angeles, California (if I recall my research on it a few years ago correctly). They actually did a fairly good job for a while, if only because they were better than what they replaced. However, what led to that? What led to this situation was the fact that the LAPD deliberately neglected to patrol black neighborhoods, whether out of racial prejudice, cowardice or a mixture of the two.

The point behind the CRIPs example is that taking away civilized government did not leave simply an absence of government. When a large number of people are all trying to live in the same place, there will inevitably be some degree of organization, and there will inevitably be situations in which one party or the other feels put upon. It is simply unavoidable. There is no such thing as a society that doesn't have a government. You can have a society where the ruling government does NOT come to power by free election, but you cannot have a society in which there is no government or "limited government."

If you take away the taxes that help pay for post-secondary education, that won't abolish taxes. The remaining people who are willing to go into debt to advance themselves would not simply "eat" that debt: they would find away to pass it on to somebody else, such as by charging more for their services. One way or the other, you are going to pay. Usually, if you allow a well-adjusted government to handle it, you pay less in the long-run.

Florida decided to experiment with the idea of getting the government out of situations in which it is questionable whether someone really needed to kill another person in "self-defense." Well, here are the consequences: instead of Zimmerman being charged with a crime, being a court hearing and probably getting off with a slap on the wrists, entirely without the incident attracting very much notice, Zimmerman will be attacked by a misguided lynch mob and hanged by the neck until he dies. Rather than having a judge explain Zimmerman's side of the story to Trayvon's family, Trayvon's family will simply hear the most sensationalized version of the story from news outlets that are sympathetic with their grief. Taking the elected government out of the equation just leaves the situation to be tended to in the old-fashioned way.

There is your "limited government." If you take away the government, those debt collectors you have been hanging up on would come and crack your skull open with a baseball bat. There is no such thing as "limited government," just limited democracy, which ultimately leads to a whole world of suck.

That's true - in a *trial*.

We're talking about *before* there is even the *possibility* of a trial. The law completely circumvents the legal system in a rather unprecedented way.

Agreed, there is such a disparity of different accounts that I've heard that I'm going to wait for a trial to ultimately see what happens. What I initially thought was very clearly manslaughter has become more and more murky as different "facts" have come to light.

That doesn't, however, stop us from debating the laws surrounding the issue.

"Immunity from prosecution" is not per se separate from the hub-bub of "Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground" laws.

Florida's highest court is trying to distinguish the differences, as in one of the more recent citations listed in another cited case. "Found" Immunity before a trial, with at most a hearing, is very different from any type of defense in a trial that's not already precluded from the immunity. Separate statues in each different State are involved across the Union, but they are all bastards from the same stock, with clues to each others' few benefits and extreme drawbacks.

Tadzio

In terms of the Florida law - they are separate statutes. The "immunity from prosecution" statute relies on the "stand your ground" statute for purposes of defining a justified self-defense incident, but there is absolutely no reliance whatsoever on the "stand your ground" statute on the "immunity from prosecution" statute. They are both part of the same law that deals with justifiable use of force (the entirety of Section 776), but they are separate laws.

For instance:

In this case we consider whether a trial court should conduct a pretrial
evidentiary hearing and resolve issues of fact when ruling on a motion to dismiss
asserting immunity from criminal prosecution pursuant to section 776.032, Florida
Statutes (2006), commonly known as the “Stand Your Ground” statute. We have
for review the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Dennis v. State,
17 So. 3d 305 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009), which held that the existence of disputed
issues of material fact required the denial of Dennis‟s motions to dismiss. The
Fourth District certified that its decision is in direct conflict with the decision of - 2 -
the First District Court of Appeal in Peterson v. State, 983 So. 2d 27 (Fla. 1st DCA
2008), which held that the existence of disputed issues of material fact did not
warrant denial of a motion to dismiss asserting immunity under section 776.032.
We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
We conclude that where a criminal defendant files a motion to dismiss on
the basis of section 776.032, the trial court should decide the factual question of
the applicability of the statutory immunity. Accordingly, we disapprove the Fourth
District‟s reasoning in Dennis and approve the reasoning of Peterson on that issue.
However, because we conclude that the trial court‟s error in denying Dennis a
pretrial evidentiary hearing on immunity was harmless, we do not quash the Fourth
District‟s decision affirming Dennis‟s conviction and sentence.

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/deci ... 09-941.pdf

(There's that darn "harmless" again too!! !).

Shooting is necessary when you are faced with an *active* and serious threat.

Example:
You hear a bang late at night from downstairs, you go down to find someone ransacking your living room. If he doesn't drop what he's holding and get out with five seconds *or* starts to move towards you, it's time to pull the trigger.

I'm not trying to argue that the two statutes aren't related - all I'm saying is getting rid of 776.032 does not hamper the ability for 776.012 to stand on it's own as an affirmative defense. I freely admit that 776.032 relies on the definition of justified use of deadly force put forward by 776.012. My problem is that in order to indict/arrest/detain someone suspected of unjustified use of force (otherwise known as manslaughter), you have to essentially be able to prove that the person is guilty of unjustified use of force. This kind of circular logic is the principle reason Zimmerman hasn't been arrested/charged already.

A soft, warm, gentle love caress, of course.

Arrows are substantially more painful than bullets. Bullets either go straight through or stop and tend to be fairly lightweight.

An arrow makes a nice gaping hole in your body (much larger contact area) and then lodges there, and any slight movement of the shaft will cause intense pain from the arrow head shifting about.

Wonderful things for putting someone down in a hurry if your a good shot and don't mind if they yell.