Some time ago I read a very interesting book called No Duty To Retreat: Violence and Values in american Historya nd Society, by Richard Maxwell Brown, some legal history about how the US departed from the common law tradition that there is a duty to retreat if you can do so, lots of fun stuff about Western gunfighters and their less romantic descendants like Bernie Goetz (remember him)? It's short, 175 pp. of text, I recommend it. jks
--- snitsnat <snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.blogwood.com/archives/001086.html
>
> Backed by the National Rifle Association, the
> proposed bill also would have
> let Jay Levin, the suburban Boca Raton accountant
> who shot and killed a
> teenager playing a door-knocking prank, walk away
> without being prosecuted.
>
> Under the proposal, people aren't required to
> retreat back down or run
> away if they are in fear that a person would
> attack or commit a forcible
> felony on them in any place a person "has the right
> to be." Potential
> victims can "meet force with force," even if it
> results in death, and not
> face criminal charges or civil lawsuits.
>
> Supporters of the legislation speak mainly about
> what they call the Castle
> Doctrine aspect of the bill the right to protect
> one's home with deadly
> force. Similar laws letting people use deadly force
> if people break into
> their home are on the books in other states,
> including Oklahoma and
> Colorado, where it's dubbed the "Make My Day" law.
>
> But critics in Florida point out that the proposal
> also extends the right
> to shoot in self-defense beyond a person's front
> door onto the porch,
> into their vehicle, and out on the street.
>
> more at http://www.blogwood.com/archives/001086.html
>
>
> "We live under the Confederacy.
> We're a podunk bunch of swaggering
> pious hicks."
>
> --Bruce Sterling
>
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