Stand Your Ground Florida, Stand Your Ground

[Nessie]

What level of force can be safely used against someone who is armed?

That is a serious question. They obviously cannot be pushed. I doubt they could be punched, since one punch rarely, but does sometimes result in death. How about a kick on the backside? I doubt that has ever resulted in a death.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What level of force can be safely used against someone who is armed?

I'm not touching the overall argument but I will address one thing.

There is a huge, huge, huge level of misconception out there about how easy it is to control another human being under pretty much any circumstance. Even dealing with a 100% passive, as in literally they just go limp like a sack of wet sand, individual is one of the hardest things you can do. Dealing with somebody acting violent or irrational in a way that guarantees no danger to themselves, yourself, or bystanders is damn near impossible.

People have this image in their head of Vulcan Nerve pinches and guns being shot out of hands in a split second and magic Hollywood punches that knock people unconscious with no lasting effect and Tasers that act like Star Trek phasers set to Stun and magic holds that allow you to subdue someone with your pinky and...stuff like that just doesn't exist.

 

[Nessie]

I ask because as it stands, armed people can pretty much do anything they want and claim even minimal force that very rarely causes injury, let alone death, as a deadly attack on their life that means they can use their guns, which ARE a likely cause of serious injury and death.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The sad truth is that it really WOULD have been considered appropriate by many people for McGlockton to have brandished a weapon to deter Drejka. Drejka was shouting at McGlockton's partner in the presence of children, that seems an appropriate time to need some deterrence.

Which could lead to the same outcome. On or the other feels that they are in fear of their life. If Drejka then goes for his gun (because he feels his life is in danger), then whoever shoots first wins.

Sometimes it is less about the law as it is about the enthusiasm of the people who look for ways to implement that law. We risk giving deadly license to hotheads.

Isn't that the whole point of standing your ground?

 

[Fudbucker]

Seriously, why is it that people here are determined to paint this as a good guy vs bad guy scenario? The way I see it, McGlockton overreacted to a confrontation and used criminal violence. Drejka overreacted to said assault and used deadly force when there was not sufficient danger to justify it. I have more condemnation for Drejka because making an judgment error while carrying a firearm has far greater consequences than being unarmed. As far as I'm concerned, no one involved in this confrontation comes out looking very good, nor is it necessary to determine who is a hero or villain.

There is sufficient evidence to doubt whether Drejka was reasonably in fear for his life when he fatally shot McGlockton. A jury should examine this and decide if it was lawful self defense or criminal. You don't have to like McGlockton nor approve of his decisions to see that his death was the result of criminal action.

Yeah, this seems almost like a bar fight to me. Words are exchanged, a shove, and then a pool cue crack to the head gunshot, which kills a guy. In that situation, the killer is charged.

 

[Nessie]

I previously supported stand your ground as a law in the past, despite having some reservations based on how certain people view conflict resolution. If this shooting is an indication of how slack-jawed law-enforcement agents are going to apply it, I don't think I can stand by that support.

I never assumed it was going to be cover for thin-skinned tough guys to go around shooting people over petty transgressions. I suppose I was a bit naive.

Of course the police are going to support the use of a gun against minimal threat. There are numerous instances of police officers shooting people who did not pose a realistic threat to them. It is not in the police's interest to raise the bar when it comes to justifying force.

 

[theprestige]

Not in self defence situations. Then it is in their interests that any attack is considered as deadly and they can be excused using their gun.

Gun owners don't just exist at the moment of self defense. They are, in fact, complete human beings who live their lives in a community day in and day out. They have more interests than just the one - including all the same interests you have.

 

[This is The End]

Shoving a person to the ground can be deadly force.

The "to the ground" part can be about the person being shoved just as much as the one doing the shoving. Both because of the stature of the person being shoved, and because of how they recover being shoved.

Quite frankly, the video is not perfect but it sure looks like there's a good chance that the actual fall part could have been the man hamming it up.

Perhaps people in here don't watch much basketball or soccer. Because you can easily make it look like a push was much more violent than it was.

I'm not saying the man could have recovered from the push without going down. But I'm not going to assume the opposite either.

Or you can be horrible at it:

 

[Meadmaker]

Thought for the day:

Suppose, as a possibility, that Mr. Drejka was not afraid at all when he hit the ground. Suppose, instead, that he was just very, very, angry at having been shoved.

Would the tape look any different?


(Insert any other questions that might come up as you see fit.)

 

[beachnut]

No hate crime charges yet?

This guy has not been brought up on hate crime yet? Send for the Feds, oops, the feds are some of the "good people" on both sides. The trump admin might give the guy a medal.

I thought SYG meant if you had superior fire power, aka gun vs shove, you were to retreat and save your ammo for a real attack.

I save my big rocks when the Big Buck fails to run, buck decides to advance after hitting said buck with rock in shoulder while he ate our roses. I SYG with the right to retreat at speeds commensurate with the threat.

New Florida fine for being in a handicap spot. No ticket, straight to the morgue.

 

[Reactor drone]

What are your provisions for less than lethal assaults?

Without the ability to see into the future how do you determine what is a less than lethal assault on your person?

 

[Thermal]

Thought for the day:

Suppose, as a possibility, that Mr. Drejka was not afraid at all when he hit the ground. Suppose, instead, that he was just very, very, angry at having been shoved.

Would the tape look any different?


(Insert any other questions that might come up as you see fit.)

I thought that's what the tape showed?

 

[Thermal]

Without the ability to see into the future how do you determine what is a less than lethal assault on your person?

Unarmed attackers would generally be non lethal. I mean, sure, they might beat you to death with their bare hands. Super Ninjas on crack or what have you. Are you suggesting that all assaults should be treated as deadly, just to be safe? You know where that argument leads.

 

[Ziggurat]

Without the ability to see into the future how do you determine what is a less than lethal assault on your person?

That isn't actually a relevant distinction. The threshold for the use of deadly force in self defense is not the threat being lethal.

 

[Ziggurat]

Unarmed attackers would generally be non lethal. I mean, sure, they might beat you to death with their bare hands. Super Ninjas on crack or what have you.

There are more than 600 homicides per year in the US committed by unarmed attackers. Evidently there are a lot of Super Ninjas on crack.

Are you suggesting that all assaults should be treated as deadly, just to be safe? You know where that argument leads.

Once again, the threshold for the use of deadly force in self defense is not a lethal threat.

 

[This is The End]

Suppose, as a possibility, that Mr. Drejka was not afraid at all when he hit the ground. Suppose, instead, that he was just very, very, angry at having been shoved.

Would the tape look any different?

Nope, it would not.

 

[3point14]

I'm not saying that, nor do I advocate that. I'm just sick of violent criminals being coddled, and I don't sympathize with people whose first reaction in any kind of altercation is to hit or shove people, and it doesn't grieve me when sometimes these people end up dead in justified self-defense situations. Since I do carry a concealed weapon, I tend to not put myself into situations where I encounter drunks or "nutjobs", and if I did, and I was able to reasonably determine that they weren't interested in killing me, there is a lot I would tolerate, and despite SYG laws I would probably try to retreat as quickly as possible. Let me re-emphasize again that I think the shooting in the OP was unjustified, and he should be in jail.



Carrying a weapon definitely stacks the odds in my favor, assuming that most violent encounters that I'm likely to have may be with unarmed assailants. I make no apologies for that. Once again, I don't go around causing trouble, bullying people around, insulting them, or putting my hands on them. I don't have any training in such evaluation. Perhaps, if like police, it was my business to confront criminals, I should be morally and legally required to employ non-lethal methods as a first resort. In my case, since I'm only ultimately going to be reacting to violent attackers or the threat of such, if I draw my gun it's because I have to. I will employ whatever means I have to de-escalate the situation prior to that, but I'm not going to employ escalating methods of response as a matter of practicality. If I pepper spray the wrong person as opposed to shooting them, it may end up costing me my life.

What's your alternative? To allow yourself to be bludgeoned by drunks and nutjobs, and hope they don't kill or maim you?

I'm really glad I don't live where you do so I don't really have to think about these sort of things.

It must be exhausting.

 

[Nessie]

Gun owners don't just exist at the moment of self defense. They are, in fact, complete human beings who live their lives in a community day in and day out. They have more interests than just the one - including all the same interests you have.

As someone who does not own a gun, it is in my interests that the bar for what counts as self defence for which the use of a gun is justified is set high. I am not going to be in a position to shoot someone and what to be as safe as possible from being shot.

If I got a gun, it is in my interest to lower that bar, so I am less likely to get into bother if I shoot someone.

That is what has happened in the USA and it helps to explain why so many shooters kill and don't even get charged, when what they did was shoot when then were not at any obvious immediate risk of a deadly attack.

 

[Nessie]

Thought for the day:

Suppose, as a possibility, that Mr. Drejka was not afraid at all when he hit the ground. Suppose, instead, that he was just very, very, angry at having been shoved.

Would the tape look any different?


(Insert any other questions that might come up as you see fit.)

No it would not. Drejka's pride/ego was certainly hurt, he was not physically hurt.

Being pushed over, like being punched, very rarely results in death, especially with an adult male.

Drejka killed because he was angry and he will have known there was a very good chance he would get away scot free because of the stand your ground law as it is presently enforced.

 

[3point14]

Without the ability to see into the future how do you determine what is a less than lethal assault on your person?

When there's a bloke walking towards you down the street - without the ability to see into the future - how do you determine he's not going to blindside you as you walk past?