FL: `Stand Your Ground' works -- for criminals

[GSG]

A gang of young street thugs drove into a rival gang's turf, guns at the ready, looking for a fight.

Thirty shots were fired that day in 2008. A 15-year-old kid was killed. Two of the invading gang members faced homicide charges.

But the case fell apart this spring, lost in the chasm between gun reality and the gun myths promulgated by the Florida Legislature.

The actions of the two gun-wielding Tallahassee gangbangers, a Leon County Circuit Court judge ruled, were protected from prosecution by the 2005 ``Stand Your Ground'' law that expanded the definition of justifiable self-defense into something vague and plainly dangerous...

Read the rest of the story at http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/04/1761938/stand-your-ground-works-for-criminals.html

 

[Ink]

Why the hell did the case fall apart if the "INVADING" gang members were responsible? Why do these articles NEVER tell you if any of the firearms were even legal or if anyone had a permit? The stand your ground law should not apply to these pos because they go looking for it and / or think it's cool to live this life. Wanna be in a gang? What's that about play stupid games? Throw em all in Jail. It dam f'n sucks because the actions of a few azzholez , a great law that allows people the right to stand and defend themselves ( like we should even NEED a law for this is ridiculous) is now gonna be another chew toy and rallying cry for anti-gun pansies.

rawr

 

[GSG]

The stand your ground law should not apply to these pos because they go looking for it and / or think it's cool to live this life.

It doesn't.

776.013(3):

(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

 

[n1oty]

I'm willing to bet that the judges, prosecutors and police who do not like this particular law are whining and pulling these stunts in order to cast an unfavorable light on the law. The sad fact, as anyone with any time in law enforcement knows, is that most of these gang-bangers already have an extensive criminal history and shouldn't be on the street to begin with.

 

[lupis42]

It doesn't.

776.013(3):

Is driving onto someone else's turf now illegal?

 

[AppleSeeds]

Guy is trying to legislate from the bench, that's for sure.

 

[DickWanner]

Is driving onto someone else's turf now illegal?

If one does so with the intention of committing a crime it is.

 

[Skald]

Common sense would say that grabbign your homies with lots of guns to drive into another part of the city specifically to kill/cause trouble the whole 'stand your ground' doesn't work.

I honestly think this is a judge trying to paint the 'Stand Your Ground" law as unsavory to the public to try so his 'utopia' of no guns and unicorns crapping ice cream sundaes comes to be.

 

[theGringo]

``It is very much like the Wild West,'' said the judge, as he tossed out the charges against the two Tallahassee gun thugs in May. ``Maybe that is not what was intended, but that seems to be the effect of the language used.''

``Before this law, I kind of had an obligation to avoid going to a gunfight, to avoid deadly force,'' Second Circuit State Attorney Willie Meggs said Wednesday. ``Before this law, I kind of had an obligation to call the police. Now, I can go to a gunfight and stand my ground.''

Meggs, president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association back in 2005, had warned that Stand Your Ground legislation would spawn unintended consequences. He called it the ``shoot your Avon lady law.''

Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

 

[JimB]

Why the hell did the case fall apart if the "INVADING" gang members were responsible? Why do these articles NEVER tell you if any of the firearms were even legal or if anyone had a permit? The stand your ground law should not apply to these pos because they go looking for it and / or think it's cool to live this life. Wanna be in a gang? What's that about play stupid games? Throw em all in Jail. It dam f'n sucks because the actions of a few azzholez , a great law that allows people the right to stand and defend themselves ( like we should even NEED a law for this is ridiculous) is now gonna be another chew toy and rallying cry for anti-gun pansies.

rawr

cause the law only applies to the legitimate gun owner, witness the Laqay Jefferson (spellling???) case where his mother was found innocent, she is already a felon,
if it was one of us they would have ripped us a new a**h***, good thing she
wasn't LICENSED

 

[KMaurer]

I'm willing to bet that the judges, prosecutors and police who do not like this particular law are whining and pulling these stunts in order to cast an unfavorable light on the law. The sad fact, as anyone with any time in law enforcement knows, is that most of these gang-bangers already have an extensive criminal history and shouldn't be on the street to begin with.

This

Ken

 

[Boghog1]

BilltheCat in the comments section is as clueless as the Judge

 

[GSG]

I'm willing to bet that the judges, prosecutors and police who do not like this particular law are whining and pulling these stunts in order to cast an unfavorable light on the law.

I think that's what it comes down to. Protecting the rights of the innocent sometimes makes LE's job more difficult, which is the way it's meant to be.

Is driving onto someone else's turf now illegal?

No. But in Florida at 18 you can drive around with a loaded handgun in the car with no permit, as long as you're not a prohibited person. The details are sketchy on that case, even in the judge's written opinion, but there's no legal way a 15 year old can drive around with a gun in Florida.

Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

Willy Meggs is the same guy who prosecuted Jimmy Hair, in a clean shoot. He spent two years locked up while the courts sorted it all out.

 

[lupis42]

I think that's what it comes down to. Protecting the rights of the innocent sometimes makes LE's job more difficult, which is the way it's meant to be.

Exactly.

No. But in Florida at 18 you can drive around with a loaded handgun in the car with no permit, as long as you're not a prohibited person. The details are sketchy on that case, even in the judge's written opinion, but there's no legal way a 15 year old can drive around with a gun in Florida.

Fair enough.