The Problem with Stand Your Ground

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stand-your-ground-laws-coincide-with-jump-in-justifiable-homicide-cases/2012/04/07/gIQAS2v51S_print.html

THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS

""IF I FEEL THREATENED BY A GUY KNOCKING AT MY DOOR AT 4AM ASKING TO HAVE HIS CIGARETTE LIT I CAN SHOOT HIM LEGALLY""

        Billy Kuch was a troubled kid. As an adolescent, he had bipolar disorder diagnosed and he’d been arrested a couple of times for driving under the influence. He drank too much, and he knew it.
        So when he was out at a party that August night on Golden Eagle Drive near the intersection of Gun Smoke Drive, he decided he was too blitzed to drive home. He left the party to lock his keys inside his car so he couldn’t get behind the wheel later that night.
         Kuch, then 23, stumbled back toward the party but forgot which beige stucco house was hosting the bash. He knocked on the wrong door, the one belonging to Gregory Stewart, a 32-year-old homeowner who did not appreciate having his wife and baby disturbed by a drunk kid after 4 in the morning. Kuch went away and texted his sister that he was totally confused about what was going on.
        Then Kuch found what he thought was the party house and tried the door. But he’d landed at Stewart’s place, again.
         This time, after Kuch turned the doorknob, Stewart told his wife to call 911. Then he grabbed his Smith & Wesson semiautomatic and went into his front yard.
         Stewart said he kept asking Kuch to leave, but Kuch, thinking the guys at the party were playing a joke on him, stayed.
         “Don’t make me shoot you,” warned the 6-foot-1 Stewart, according to police records. “I don’t want to shoot you.”
            Kuch, who stands 5-foot-9, raised his hands, asked for a light and lurched toward the homeowner. Stewart fired.

           Stewart broke down in tears when police arrived. “I could have given him a light,” he said. But he said he had felt threatened.
        Police asked Stewart why he hadn’t just waited inside until officers arrived.
        “I don’t know,” replied Stewart. His unwanted visitor, he said, was unarmed.
         “If I had a crazy drunk guy at my door,” said Jeanann Kuch, Billy’s mother, “I’d have locked my door and called 911.”

Kuch spent five weeks in a coma. He woke with no recollection of the incident.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/03/20/deaths-nearly-triple-since-stand-your-ground-enacted/   

MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – As some state lawmakers are calling for a re-thinking of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows people to defend themselves from danger without the need to first try to get away, an analysis of state data shows deaths due to self defense are up over 200 percent since the law took effect.

Until 2005, it was generally considered self defense if someone tried to get into your home or invade your property, so long as you could show deadly force was the last resort. In 2005, the “Stand your Ground” law removed the need to retreat before using force, even in public.

According to state crime stats, Florida averaged 12 “justifiable homicide” deaths a year from 2000-2004. After “Stand your Ground” was passed in 2005, the number of “justifiable” deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.

Florida Stand Your Ground Database
http://www.tampabay.com/stand-your-ground-law/