ribit:
Re: “Asshole belongs in jail.”
Agreed. However if the Florida law says that all a shooter needs is to feel threatened, then the law is a bad law that desperately needs revision. It should read that the shooter must be in reasonable fear for his (or another's) safety. I don't think anyone seeing that video would conclude that the shooting was warranted. The victim wasn't giving any sign that he intended to continue the attack, and what he'd done so far was not life threatening.
Now, if the victim had hit the shooter with a baseball bat, it would be a different story and the shooting might have been warranted. If the victim had STABBED the shooter, then there's no question it would have been warranted.
But shoving? No. Not life threatening by any reasonable standard. The shooter should be under arrest right now. If the law won't permit that, then the law stinks and needs to be revised.
Now I'm going to quickly research the Florida law to see whether the law is B.S. or it's being mischaracterized by Leftists.
Senate Bill 128: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2017/128/BillText/er/HTML
For starters, what I'm seeing is that while the bill grants:
Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action 14 for justifiable use or threatened use of force.
- it does not define the word "justifiable." I'm going to look elsewhere to see what "justifiable" means. IMO, though, the recent shooting was not what I consider justifiable. And it probably wouldn't be to most people and therefore the police should have made an arrest.
But how does Florida define the term? Well, on this legal site http://www.kirkpinkerton.com/self-defense-others-florida/ I'm finding:
Basic “self-defense” law in Florida (Section 776.012(2), Florida Statutes) states that 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” (emphasis added). In Section 776.08, Florida Statutes, a “forcible felony” is defined as “treason; murder; manslaughter; sexual battery; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; robbery; burglary; arson; kidnapping; aggravated assault; aggravated battery; aggravated stalking; aircraft piracy; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.”
And that's pretty much as I figured. The shooter should be under arrest. And the police chief who said the law does not allow it is is an idiot. No jury would find the shooting justifiable.
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