“Criminals should not be given the upper hand and force victims to run away or flee before being able to defend themselves.”
In two separate articles both on the same topic (the justifiable use of force in Florida), Business Insider and The Root both tried to put a huge spin on the possibility of Florida lawmakers changing part of the use of force statute in an attempt to correct something that was changed by the judiciary and not the Florida legislators.
In Florida, the lawful use of force is governed by very easy to understand (and quite frankly, some of the best) self-defense laws in the country. Florida State Statute 776.012 is titled “Justifiable Use of Force, Use or threatened use of force in defense of person.” It’s not a long or wordy law, and many have incorrectly called it the “stand your ground law.”
(1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force.
(2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.
A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.
What you can see from reading the law is that first it talks about defending yourself without using deadly force. This is for when your life or the life of another is not in danger. Defending yourself is a human right.
The second subsection is the one that many get all twisted up and turned around to try and make it out to be something it is not. Simply put, the law says if you are in a place legally and not committing a crime, you can defend yourself or another from great bodily harm or death and may use deadly force to do so.
Notice that it does not say shoot someone or use a firearm, nor does it make any other mention of firearms anywhere. You could, by this law, use anything you have available to defend yourself or another. A knife, stick, car, tire iron, and baseball bat are all legal to use to defend yourself or another. But because firearms are used in most of these types of incidents, they are believed to be evil and wrong in and of themselves. Never mind that a person is saving someone’s life.
Where the articles stray is that they try to make it out that not having to flee is something that is wrong. In essence, allowing people not to have to run away at the sign of danger and being able to defend themselves is purportedly what’s wrong with the statute. This is just ludicrous and beyond the normal thought process for any normal human being.
What do they expect people to do to stop an armed attacker? Run away or yell harsh language at them? Maybe like some others, they want you to hug it out with the bad guys. Realistically, people must be able to defend themselves. Criminals should not be given the upper hand and force victims to run away or flee before being able to defend themselves.
Currently in Florida, if you use deadly force to stop a threat to yourself or another, you have to go before a judge in an “immunity” hearing, and you, the “defendant,” have to prove you used that force legally. In other words, you have to prove your innocence even before going to trial.
This alone is against the very foundations of our legal system’s belief that a person is “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” and the burden to prove that rests with the state, not the defendant.
In Florida, this got twisted, and now the lawmakers are attempting to fix that—by changing the law and making the state prove that you did not use force in self-defense. In other words, they are trying to make the law as it was intended, not as the courts have twisted the law to be currently.
These articles continue to make some very inflammatory statements, none of which are factual or proven by any means. They are suppositions and opinions based on who knows what. One of the articles is entitled “States Are Quietly Resurrecting a Law That Makes It Easier to Kill Blacks.” Now if that is not an inflammatory title that tries to bring race into a subject that is blind to race, nothing is. That headline is absolutely ridiculous and baseless. No wonder this country is divided with headlines such as that, which are nothing more than race baiting.
The Root’s article shows a lack of understanding of the very basic legal doctrine of the United States and what our founding fathers wanted—to make the government prove a person’s guilt and not the other way around.
Now Florida is back at it again. According to the New York Times:
“The Sunshine State is set to strengthen its law by shifting the responsibility of proving immunity from the defendant to prosecutors. In short—in Florida, if you kill another person with a gun and claim that you were defending yourself, it is up to the state to prove that your use of force was not justified.”
The author says this like it’s something wrong. And to further make race the issue and not the guilt or innocence of the person defending themselves, the author goes on to say,
“Stand your ground’ laws have repeatedly been shown to be biased. In fact, study after peer-reviewed study on the issue shows that ‘stand your ground’ laws result in more homicides, and there is no doubt who benefits. Research shows that white men who shoot black men are more likely to benefit from such laws, which means that the resurrection of the castle doctrine will most likely mean that more white men will get away with killing black men.”
Wow, if I wrote that, substituting the word “black” for “white,” I would be hung up and branded a racist. And the supposed peer-reviewed study has been shown to be nothing more than a twisting of numbers to fit an agenda. You can read about that very same topic in one of my previous articles on that very study.
In the other article, Representative Ras Smith (D), Iowa, stood up in session this year and said some things on the House floor that were just plain untrue and misleading, like the previous article. While speaking against the changing of Iowa’s use of force laws, he stated,
“Smith’s speech lasted less than four minutes. Toward the end, he reminded the other legislators that there is a history in the United States of whites committing violence against black men, out of hatred and out of irrational fear.”
What does that have to do with the lawful use of force by law-abiding citizens? Nothing. He went on to put on a sweatshirt with a hood, then put the hood up, headphones on, and said, “This is that threat you can perceive every day.” Really what he was saying is that because he is a black man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, white men fear him? I think the good lawmaker needs to study the meaning behind the lawful use of force.
What both of these articles—and many that try to do the same thing and bring race into the use of force law debate—do not mention is that race is not mentioned anywhere in the law at all. In fact, when a person is involved in a life-and-death event, they are probably not looking at race to decide if they should defend themselves or not. Race is not the issue in this topic. And those writing about it need to be truthful and realize all they are doing is adding to the division and hatred they so quickly accuse others of.
So let’s put simplicity back into this discussion. The law says that if you need to protect yourself, you can. And if you are in fear of your life, you may use deadly force to protect yourself. How is that so difficult for people to understand? Sometimes the only way to stop a violent criminal is with violence.
