Here are the indisputable facts.
Stand Your Ground NRA law reared its head again (you decide if it is ugly or not) in Florida last weekend. Guy, girlfriend and their three children stop at a convenience store. She is driving. He gets out and goes inside to buy something. She and children wait in car. A man comes up and confronts the woman in the car. Guy comes out of store, sees the confrontation, approaches the man and shoves him to ground. Man on ground then pulls out a gun and shoots the guy who shoved him. He is shot in the chest and dies at the hospital. Police arrive at the scene and arrest the shooter for murder.
Those are the indisputable facts. All except the last sentence.
The shooter claimed he felt threatened and invoked the Stand Your Ground law to police. He is not arrested.
This happened about 12 miles from Sinkhole estates, and I'm sure it has made the national news. As much as we might like a story that is cut-and-dried and black-and-white and easy to root for a good guy or boo and bad one, this story, aside from the indisputable facts is riddled with gray areas.
The girlfriend parked in a handicapped spot
All three of the victim's kids were in the car and witnessed shooting
The shooter was a local "crank" whose hobby seemed to be neighborhood watch for folks who cheated on the parking spaces.
The victim was black (28)
The shooter was white (49)
Both were too aggressive in their reactions
Like the infamous Trayvon Martin shooting before, we have another Florida Stand-Your-Ground shooting. Besides the fact that Florida is a lawless, fetid state full of packing sun-baked crazies, there are actually quite a few states with the NRA blessed and backed stand-your-ground license to shoot anyone without penalty. Don't confront anyone in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. Of course, back in the day we used to refer to such incidents as self-defense.
This area of law also has a couple of other avenues as well. There is the Castle Doctrine which states that any trespasser who enters a home can be shot in self-defense. On the other side of the SYG equation is the Duty To Retreat law. This simply states that if you are threatened, and you have the means to do so, you are obligated to retreat. Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Wyoming subscribe to the retreat law. If you live in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia or Washington you guys haven't legislatively passed SRG laws, but adhere to its tenets in practice.
I can't speak for George Zimmerman who shot Trayvon Martin dead in 2012. And I can't speak for Michael Drejka who shot Markeis McGlockton dead last week in Clearwater. Note the word "dead". Martin was walking in a gated community and appeared suspicious, so Zimmerman, disobeying headquarters instructions, confronted and ultimately shot Martin. Martin who was 17 is now dead for a long long time. McGlockton's girlfriend parked in a handicap space, and when he came out defended his girlfriend by shoving a guy and now he is dead a long long time.
When you are dead you are dead for a long long time. Is it worth it to die for walking in an area where you look suspicious? Is it worth being dead to argue over a parking space? Not in my book.
It seems to me our laws reflect our governments. We vote people in who we want to legislate a certain way. Are Stand Your Ground states more Republican? Are Retreat law states more Democratic? Have we lost, as a people, the ability to defend ourselves without killing? Have we lost the ability to successfully disengage from threatening situations? Stand your ground is now honorable, and retreating successfully is shameful? I'll bet Trayvon and Markeis might have done things differently, while George and Michael might be satisfied they didn't "give in".
I don't have any answers here, although we, each of us, probably know what we would have done on both sides. Remember the movie Shane? First off, that might be among my three favorite westerns alongside Lonesome Dove and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. When writing this I thought that Stonewall Torrey, the cocky Southerner would be a good example of Stand Your Ground. He wasn't about to take any guff from the Jack Palance character. All he had to do was walk away and he could have enjoyed the rest of the movie. But after more thinking, it's not Stonewall who is the SYG figure, but the Jack Palance character.
Me? Well, I hate to see self-defense fall by the wayside. The whole thing is a reminder that we are no longer concerned with the welfare of each other, that we now feel, as a society, more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. There was a time when a man was measured by his ability to "take it", rather than to "shoot it."
The old bumper sticker slogan comes to mind: Death Before Dishonor. Bullshit. Who's honor? What standard? This is a canard propagated by the John Wayne and VFW crowd. There is as much honor is a man getting up everyday to go to work to keep his family clothed and fed as there is the guy in the foxhole. We don't just have one incident in our lives that we face the specter of honor or dishonor, its every day - its simply doing the right things. There is no dishonor in retreat - if it keeps one alive.
Dangerous situations unfold quickly and leave us little time to think.
Ultimately, it seems to me, the goal should be who crosses the finish line last.
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