The shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman has brought to light the Florida Stand Your Ground self-defense law. Politicians and professional and amateur pundits are doing like they always do by overreacting and calling for a change in the law. Not only should this Florida self-defense criminal law not be changed. In fact, the truth is the states that do not have a Stand Your Ground law should be adopting it as the standard for self-defense.
First of all, instead of attacking the law, many reasonable observers are noting that the Stand Your Ground law may not even apply in the case of Trayvon Martin. In this case, Zimmerman used a gun - the principal example of deadly force in self-defense and defense-of-others law. The question here is whether the Stand Your Ground law provides a defense for Zimmerman in this case, not whether the Stand Your Ground law is a good self-defense law.
This is like when people blame religion for wars. It’s just a bogus argument. Religion is not responsible for war. People abusing religion or misapplying its teachings are the ones responsible for war. In this case, the fact that the Florida police might be misapplying the Stand Your Ground law does not mean it’s a bad law. Under this twisted logic, any law would have to be changed because any law can be misapplied.
The Stand Your Ground law is about retreat. In many states, you must attempt to retreat first before using deadly force if there is any possible avenue for retreat. That is a horrible law on its face. Self-defense laws requiring retreat put you in a Catch 22: either defend yourself now or try to retreat and risk getting shot or stabbed in the back or otherwise injured or killed during the retreat.
Requiring retreat before deadly force ignores the heightened emotional state, adrenaline and stress accompanied by being attacked. A victim cannot reasonably be expected to “think things through” or look around for an avenue of retreat. Those who devised the retreat requirement grew up in a nice neighborhood and didn’t have to worry about being mugged on a regular basis. I grew up in a nice neighborhood, but I also have common sense and can put myself in the shoes of a victim. An attack on the street is not an exercise in classroom or courtroom logic. It is an event that happens quickly and does not provide room for second guessing, pondering, deliberation, etc. You act quickly and you act decisively. That is self-defense in the real world.
Laws requiring retreat essentially blame the victim for his or her impulsive human defense mechanisms. If you are going to attack someone, then you need to take the risk of being injured or killed when the victim strikes back. Retreat should have no place in self-defense. Once you go to retreat, you just don’t know what is going to happen.
The seeming problem in the case of Trayvon Martin is that the use of deadly force might not have been justified. That is a far cry and essentially irrelevant to the value or wisdom of the Florida Stand Your Ground law. If George Zimmerman used deadly force without reasonable cause, then prosecute him. Don’t prosecute a good law that allows for reasonable self-defense without the uncertainty of a mandatory retreat in the face of danger.