Florida’s Expanded Self-Defense Law Falls Short on a Few Details

The State of Florida has enacted a new law that expands a person’s right to open fire on people that may or may not be threatening them or their families.

This is a law that is just waiting to be used and abused. It goes way past legitimate self-defense.

What will happen when someone comes knocking on an armed citizen’s door at night? Instead of finding out who’s knocking, will they open fire and kill a pizza man trying to find out where someone lives so he can deliver a pepperoni pizza? Instead of being prosecuted for criminal neglect as they should be, the armed citizen might claim self-defense and it will be legal because they thought the pizza man was trying to break in.

This law, while intending to protect people from criminals, also puts innocent life in the crosshairs as well.

Perhaps instead of letting people out of jail so soon, they ought to hold onto dangerous criminals longer and get rid of the gangs on the streets that threaten people. By getting the idiots into jail and keeping them there, they reduce the possibility of a situation where someone is forced to open fire to defend themselves from a criminal who means to do them harm.

The bill is not entirely bad. But it’s too broad and may allow criminal action to take place in the guise of legitimate self-defense.

A person does have a right to defend his or her family. But where does the line exist between using deadly force to deal with a perceived imminent threat, and outright self-defense?

The courts have to be able to determine that, and this law cuts them out of the process.

Someone who actually breaks into a house or attacks someone and gets shot should not be able to sue or press charges as is the case these days. That part of the new Florida law is entirely correct. It rights a wrong that has been responsible for sending the victim to jail and allowing the criminal to sue for damages. For what? Restraint of trade?

So, they ought to look at this law again, and make sure that the law is clearly spelled out so that there are no loopholes. Legitimate defense is one thing, but for a law to say that a person can now open fire WITHOUT trying to escape their attacker first is way out of line. It turns no-choice defense into aggression.

And it will be the untrained nincompoops that own handguns and have had no training whatsoever who will be quick on the trigger and slow on the common sense.