"Stand Your Ground"

Today I veer away from talking about my son, away from family and friends, to a troubling event that occurred in Florida within the past month.  If you haven't heard about the occurrence, it all relates to a law that a number of states have, essentially called the "Stand Your Ground" law which states that if a person is confronted by a perpetrator, they do not need to make an effort to flee or get help, but rather, can stand their ground and use deadly force if necessary to defend themselves.  This law usually applies regardless of where an even takes place, whether it be in a home, shopping center, car, or simply walking down the street.  As this law allows a person to defend themselves with whatever means necessary (gun, knife, bat), they are essentially allowed to kill another person and get away with it, as long as they felt that their life was threatened and if they didn't kill the other person, they surely would have gotten killed.  The problem with this is, that in most cases, there is no one to speak otherwise of the incident, especially if the person "attacking" was killed.  This complicates issues, especially with arresting someone who claims they acted in "self defense".  In my mind, this law drags us back to the era of draconian laws, i.e. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (not that our current justice system hasn't already done that in part).  It gives too much weight to a person's judgement as to what exactly is "self defense" and what constitutes a persons life being "endangered" by another.  People have widely different definitions of these two terms and to allow anyone to act as they will is to allow more death to occur than is necessary and also to place justice in the hands of every day citizens.  Okay, so enough about the law and my feelings on it and on to the incident that took place. 

The event took place in the town of Sanford, FL, just north of Orlando.  A 17 year old boy, who happened to be black, went to the corner store to buy iced tea and skittles.  On his way back, he noticed he was being followed by someone.  He was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone at the time and expressed a little unease about the situation.  Soon afterwards, the man following him confronted the teenager and ended up shooting him once in the chest because he said he was attacked and feared for his life.  The man following the teenager was a volunteer with the neighborhood watch who carried a gun in his car with him.  The teenage boy was unarmed except for his cell phone, iced tea, and skittles, and by the accounts from his girlfriend who was on the phone with him right before the incident occurred, he did not or would not have attacked this other man.  Yet this man is claiming self defense, he "stood his ground", and according to the law should not be arrested.  I would disagree and say that this man should be arrested and tried for murder.  There is no reason for him to have killed this teenage boy, to have stripped him of his life, all because he was "attacked".  How can we verify what he said, how are we supposed to know if his life was "in danger"?  Unfortunately, there are no eye witnesses and the legal proceedings could get nasty with this current law that Florida has in place.  This is a heinous law that needs to be eradicated from every state that has it in place.  How many more innocent lives need to be lost before we can figure out that these laws do no good?  (Article 1, Article 2)

I am not saying that we need to restrict gun laws.  The right to bear arms is guaranteed us by the constitution and as such, we should not get rid of it.  This is a matter of how we react to others, what constitutes a "threat" against our life, and what we should or should not be able to do about it.  To place in the hands of every citizen the ability to make a decision of whether they can kill another person or not is to lead us all down a road towards anarchy.  We have police for a reason, to protect the citizens of every town and city in this country.  What would be the need for them if every person was able to take justice into their own hands and kill someone else just because they felt their life was in danger?  What we need to do is take a step back, re-assess just how effective this law is (which by the looks of it isn't that effective), and change the laws we have in place to protect the innocent, to protect those who can not speak for themselves.  The killing of the teenage boy in Florida was senseless and arbitrary, and accomplished nothing.  A family is now in mourning all because there was an over zealous neighborhood watch volunteer with a gun and a law to support his unwarranted killing.  Let us just hope something is done before another situation arises where another innocent life is lost, all because someone else felt that their "life was in danger".