Dec 11th 2013, 22:19:33
Originally posted by Atryn:
Isn't this where the controversy lies? That self-defense argued you had to be in fear of your life and exhausted all other options before killing was justified. But under Stand Your ground, you merely need to "reasonably fear bodily harm" and you can kill someone. So if I think that guy is going to beat me up, its ok to murder him.
And once we've established that "ok" escalation, next time he won't plan to just beat me up, he'll make sure to bring a gun too.
We've essentially made it not just "ok" but almost the "expectation" that you should bring a gun to a fist-fight.
You can't claim stand your ground if you go looking for a fight. If you haven't gone looking for a fight and someone is going to beat you up, then you should absolutely be able to kill them. Stand your ground is in place for those times when someone is assaulted having not engaged the assailant violently or in a way that would give the assailant reason to expect bodily. The quintessential stand your ground case would have an assailant engage a victim (in a place the victim has a legal right to be) and that victim then turns and uses lethal force against the assailant. As long as the assailant engages the victim in their crime and the victim then responds, that's stand your ground. Stand your ground says that you take your life into your own hands when you decide to have a fist fight with an unsuspecting victim. This is as it should be.
-Angel1