Well, it’s officially happened. The knee has been jerked and the members of the State legislature want to “look” at self-defense laws, so as “to make sure that a situation like the deadly shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin can’t happen in Connecticut.”
I don’t even know what that means. Can someone explain that to me? If “situation” refers to the shooting of a black teen, that already happens. If “situation” refers to anyone being shot, that already happens. If “situation” refers to a jury finding that one citizen acted in self-defense when in reasonable fear of imminent death or serious physical injury, that already happens.
Oh. What you mean is your narrative, which is “unarmed innocent black teen gets jumped by aggressive over-eager wannabe cop white guy, who then starts to get beaten so he shoots and kills said teen who was only acting in self-defense”?
That? You want to legislate that specific scenario?
Yeah, that’s already covered. Again, by self-defense.
While we can sit here and argue all day whether “stand your ground” was part of the case or not, the bottom line is this: CT imposes a duty to retreat in a public place if you can do so with complete safety. Florida doesn’t. Which means, already, that CT’s self-defense law is stricter than Florida’s.
Which means that we’re already titling the scale in favor of the aggressor.
As Mark Bennett wrote the other day, if you are to pick two scenarios, which one do you pick?
In CT, we already have. There is a duty to retreat if you’re in a public place.
Or are you talking about, as Volokh says here:
Provocation is a separate question from the duty to retreat. And if we are to talk about whether Zimmerman should have been convicted on the grounds that he shouldn’t have confronted Martin in the first place, and that he was more generally “looking for trouble” (see Moore and Laney), we should be talking about the provocation limitation and not the Stand Your Ground law.
Because that’s also addressed in CT’s self-defense law.
What’s next? Eliminate the right to use deadly force in defense of oneself entirely? There’s nowhere to go, legislators. Unless you want to pass a law that says that it’s always unreasonable to use deadly force, even if I’m getting the shit kicked out of me by three heavily mercenaries. As much as we wish Martin didn’t die (and it could so easily have been avoided), there’s nothing here to legislate. I’d be willing to wager that a jury in Connecticut would’ve reached the same result. When your head is being bashed into the ground by someone on top of you (assuming those are the facts), you don’t have a duty to retreat and can use force to defend yourself.
Rep. Brandon McGee, D-Hartford, said he has asked his legislative aide to review existing state laws and plans to talk with fellow legislators and others about “what can we do in terms of being proactive in this conversation to begin looking at policies that would perpetuate what took place in Florida.”
So let’s first define what, exactly, you think the problem is. Then we can decide if a problem exists and if so, how to solve it. But we can’t get anywhere if all we have is general angst and displeasure. It’s valid, but not useful.
If you want to look 1at “policies that would perpetuate what took place in Florida” and by that I assume you mean “racism” because that’s one long euphemism, then look at other policies. Like disproportionate sentences. Like parole being backed up. Like no programs for the convicted. Like trigger happy probation officers. Like racial disparity. Like lack of funding for an adequate number of public defenders. Like so many damn things that are actually problems of racial injustice in the criminal justice system.
Not this. Look all you want. But don’t touch.