Week 2: EOC- Stand your ground.

In 2005 Florida passed the “Stand your Ground” law. Stand your ground is a law that allows people to “stand their ground”, defend themselves outside of their homes with deadly force, if they feel their life is in danger. Florida explains it in these terms, “to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony”. There are 2 other parts to this law, one being that the citizens do not have a duty to calm the situation or to remove themselves from the situation, also this law provides immunity from prosecution ad civil action when it comes to the use of justifiable force. Stand your ground laws are at times even called the “Shoot first law” due to the many different opinions on this law. According to the Tampa Bay Times “Stand Your Ground law has been invoked in more than 200 cases in Florida where charges were dismissed or defendants were acquitted or not charged at all”. Not everyone believes this law is very "lawful", the stand your ground law has an infamous reputation of being the "shoot first law" because of the fact that there is no rule within this law that shooting without retreat is lawful, if you feel danger whether the other person is armed or not, you may bring out your weapon and "defend yourself". Though the states don’t seem to be budging on this law now that people are more aware of it, it already has begun conversations, though events that led to spotlighting this law were unfortunate it has sparked conversations and has the people wanting better for their country and these are thing that should be happening, and not because a child has died. There are pros and cons to everything and the same goes for stand your ground laws, but as of now its not going anywhere so the best thing we can do is to educate ourselves because in the end education is the best weapon.