Just0Us0Two -> RE: Innocent bystander killed in SYG case (10/13/2013 5:15:54 PM)
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ORIGINAL: DomKen The duty to retreat is based on common sense. If a confrontation occurs and it is possible to get away that is what you should do. It's worked for 500 years. Now SYG is less than a decade old and we have people killing boys because of loud music and for just being in the wrong place. If you cannot see that the problem is giving people a license to kill rather than requiring that deadly force be used only in the direst circumstance. The problem with this argument is that "common sense" isn't all that common or always sensible. It's also based on details that are quite subjective. What constitutes retreating? Technically, taking one step backwards is a retreat. Who decides if your effort to retreat is sufficient? If that one step back is all I feel I can safely take, I have to rely on a prosecutor to agree with me or face charges. What constitutes a threat of grave bodily harm? If someone shows me a gun in their waste-band and then says "I'll kill you if... " Is that sufficient, or do I have to wait till the gun is in their hand? How about if the person has a knife in hand and says "I'm going to kill you" , but isn't quite close enough to stab me? How about a 5'2", 110lbs woman confronted by a 6'4", 250lbs man, who is unarmed, but is acting aggressively. What if the aggressor is a child? Some folks here seem to think that an adult should never kill a child, even if the child is armed and threatening their life. SYG laws were supposed to take some of this subjectiveness out of the equation. Of course we're now seeing that they've added all new factors that are just as subjective. The difference, as I see it though at any rate, is that now it's tilted further towards the defender as opposed to the aggressor. This case seems to be an aberration, where someone completely uninvolved in the incident was killed. Unfortunately, we don't have all the facts. We have articles, some with an agenda, some as news. Some accounts say that shots were fired. Some say that shots were still being fired when Scott was on the lawn. That implies that the SUV was still in front of the house when Scott exited, but that remains unclear. Basically, until we get more facts, or see the judges ruling, we're all just guessing.
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