Defend yourself, but don’t ‘stand your ground’
BY PGF
1 year, 10 months ago
Opinion on South Carolina Stand Your Ground, Source:
As a martial artist, I am passionate about the right of people to defend themselves. And in my years of teaching the martial arts, I have had a number of students tell me about how they have had to use force to protect themselves and loved ones from harm. But they always tried to avoid using force, because martial artists know how precious life is — even the life of an aggressor.
Martial artists believe that one should always walk away from conflict, if possible. This is why we only use force reluctantly and only as a last resort.
Also, if force must be used, we know we should use only the amount of force necessary to end the threat and allow us to get to safety.
These principles are dear to me, which is why I oppose stand-your-ground laws.
These laws allow those who use deadly force to be exempt from criminal prosecution, even if they could have easily and safely retreated from what they perceived to be a threat.
Before Florida passed the first stand-your-ground law in 2005, the United States legal tradition already protected the right to self-defense, but only after a person had done all that he or she could to avoid conflict, including backing away from the aggressor and attempting to retreat to safety.
Using deadly force to defend oneself in a public space was only allowed after one first tried to retreat or if retreat was simply not possible.
Stand-your-ground laws differ from what is known as the castle doctrine, which applies to people dealing with an intruder in their home. I do not believe anyone has an obligation to retreat from a home intruder.
The author uses a lot of the word but after claiming to believe in armed self-defense. His argument is, in one way, correct. Avoidance is always the best choice; avoiding crowds is solid advice. But he goes on to wrongly claim a difference between Castle Doctrine and self-defense anywhere. If you have the right to defend yourself in your home, you carry that right anywhere. It’s your right and does not belong to a location. Locations don’t have rights people do. We acknowledge here that the home has a degree of expected sanctuary in the Bible, but men also have to defend their life right anywhere they may be, thus the right.
The object of self-defense is to get the assailant(s) to disengage. If not being where you shouldn’t solves a threat problem, don’t go. If leaving solves that, then leave. Nothing in the Stand Your Ground Doctrine allows the offensive use of weapons or tactics, which is the argument against Stand Your Ground that always shows the ignorance of the man making the case. His opinion, as stated in this piece, is no different.
And he makes the proportional use of force argument. There’s no way to know what would have happened if X or Y, or Z. Proportional use of force is an impossible standard that will get people killed. But the evidence of either murder or self-defense can be determined. Proof is required, not a would have-should have. Arguments against Stand Your Ground also wrongly assume that turning your back is wise. It’s not; never turn your back on a threat.
Again, getting the assailant to disengage is the proper self-defense training standard to teach.
On February 24, 2023 at 3:59 pm, Rainbow Stew Bubble Up said:
Societies that are way too stupid to exist will be put out of misery by any means necessary.
The assailant doesn’t care about disengage, not even after the purse or wallet is in hand, look up the cases in England where a victim was humiliated by stripping down and having a Great Leap Forward style struggle session.
You can avoid all you want but that won’t stop a group of “yutes” from walking over and maybe even getting lippy or aggressive depending on whether a Georgie Sorrows prosecutor is working nearby like a good little Long March termite.
The St. Louis Sorrows prosecutor is gone after a comrade was out and about in violation of house arrest for the 51st time and caused a car crash that has left an upcoming athlete a double amputee.
On February 24, 2023 at 4:52 pm, BRVTVS said:
Sadly, this is the attitude I’ve come to expect from martial artists, who often are peddling an eastern mumbo-jumbo spiritual system with their fighting system.
On February 24, 2023 at 5:38 pm, Fred said:
@rainbow stew bubble up
This post is about Stand your ground laws and firearms use in self-defense. I have no clue as to what you are trying to say.
On February 24, 2023 at 8:27 pm, The Wretched Dog said:
“Stand-your-ground laws differ from what is known as the castle doctrine” – this statement is technically correct. See below.
“Locations don’t have rights people do. We acknowledge here that the home has a degree of expected sanctuary in the Bible, but men also have to defend their life right anywhere they may be, thus the right.” This is morally true, but – until Stand Your ground Laws were enacted by various (not all) states, this is something that a majority of states did not recognize. Your right to defensive use of force to protect self and others was circumscribed by the state for policy reasons…
Castle Doctrine, historically available in most every state (with but few exceptions) has long been a sop by the state to the natural and common right of self-defense, but only in your domicile. Because officious, high-caste ruling-class types never liked the rubes using force to protect themselves. They just rarely could push this idea into the home.
Otherwise, until very recently in American jurisprudence, a person exercising the right of self defense, outside of their domicile, had a ‘duty to retreat”. It was up to a jury to decide – after the fact – whether a “reasonable person” would have concluded that the defender ought to have retreated from the altercation. If such determination was made that the person attacked ought to have retreated rather than have used deadly force, again – a decision made after the fact, the self-defense justification for use of deadly defensive force was suddenly gone.
“Stand Your ground” differs specifically from “Castle Doctrine” in that it applies the idea of no duty to retreat from classic castle doctrine to the person’s use of deadly self-defense force anywhere that person has a right to be.
Prudence will indeed dictate avoiding locals that might be trouble or avoiding the fight if trouble develops. But it isn’t always possible. States that have adopted “Stand Your Ground” have broadened the realm of the citizen’s defense of self and others. But while based on a similar premise, it ain’t the same as Castle Doctrine.
TWD
On February 24, 2023 at 8:30 pm, X said:
Canadian charged with murder after shooting armed home invaders:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/02/21/milton-shooting-home-invasion-murder-charge/
On February 24, 2023 at 10:16 pm, The Wretched Dog said:
Well, Canada. See “officious, high-caste ruling-class types never liked the rubes using force to protect themselves.”
On February 24, 2023 at 10:33 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Re: “And he makes the proportional use of force argument. There’s no way to know what would have happened if X or Y, or Z. Proportional use of force is an impossible standard that will get people killed.”
Your statement is entirely correct, at least from the standpoint of human biochemistry and neurobiology. Once the “fight or flight” response kicks in – it is almost always wishful – if not delusional – thinking to believe that the typical human under threat is capable of fine nuances of thought and action. That’s simply not how our bodies react to perceived life-threatening stress.
Some sources term the condition the “acute stress response,” or the “fight, flight or freeze” syndrome in recognition that some individuals freeze/become motionless in fright, or even faint, when under extreme stress.
Alone, the numerous biochemical and hormonal changes which occur render fine gradations in cognition, action and movement all-but-impossible.
In other words, whereas these legal eagle types would have us believe that this response system is a rheostat with fine settings, in most people it is really more akin to an on-off switch. It is either “off” or “on” all the way.
And it takes a period of 6-8 hours typically, sometimes as long as 24 hours, after the traumatic event for the body to restore itself to something of an even keel. Combat soldiers experience this effect as the enormous exhaustion which takes over in the wake of an intense and prolonged battle which tests them to their absolute limits. Men so tired they pass out mid-sentence or fall asleep standing up, and other weird things like that.
On February 24, 2023 at 10:44 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ X
Re: “Canadian charged with murder after shooting armed home invaders”
I’m sorry to see that but not surprised. Across the pond in Britain, where the authorities having disarmed most Britons of firearms – the higher-ups are now working on making knives with points illegal. That’s how absurd and utterly ridiculous it is getting over there.
One supposes that is why baseball bats are now a popular home-defense tool in Old Blighty, even though that is not a British pass-time. It’s either that or a plastic safety knife, I guess, when the “cultural enrichers” (Muslims) or other thugs decide to break into your domicile.
And as in Canada, individuals have been charged with murder after being forced to defend themselves from lethal threats inside their own homes.
Although the authorities can’t quite bring themselves to say it openly, at least not yet, the endgame is to render Britons entirely defenseless against aggression. If it costs the ordinary Briton or Canadian his or her life, that is acceptable collateral damage to the new world order types.
As evil as this sequence of events is, it does have a sort of warped internal logic: If they’re going to make it impossible and illegal to defend the borders of your country, your national home, it is only a matter of time before they make it equally-difficult to defend your actual home and hearth and loved ones against the dangers of the world. They view the common person as expendable… no other conclusion is possible.
On February 25, 2023 at 1:15 pm, Grunt said:
Any asshole that starts with As a Martial Artist, I’m done, go away.