> I still believe that avoiding confrontation and not having
> a deadly weapon is better than "standing your ground".
Here we go again :-)
I don't think "stand your ground" means what you think it does.
Again, I'll implore you to take 3-5 minutes to read something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine
rather than just making up your own idea of what these things mean.
tl;dr: SYG is an extension of the Castle Doctrine which says that you don't have a "duty to retreat" from an attacker who enters your house; SYG says it can be anywhere you're legally entitled to be. SYG is unrelated to the Z case because Z was *unable* to retreat, given the physical reality of M being on top of him.
> I always followed that approach, and I haven't terribly suffered.
I'm going to step out on a limb and say that you've probably never been in a situation where you've had to decide between standing your ground and not. I mean, have you actually been attacked? Or are you just talking about your Spidey Sense causing you to take a different route, or cross the street, etc.
Stand Your Ground doesn't come into play until you are actually attacked. And it's not just Texas and Florida that has SYG laws: California, Michigan, and Pennsylvania also have them.
> Z OTOH ..... If he didn't have a gun, he would have ended up
> with a few bruises and didn't even remember the whole thing now..
Or maybe he'd be dead.
Or maybe it would never have happened, because he wouldn't be chasing after people in the dark if he didn't have a concealed weapon to help with 'courage' to do something stupid like that in the first place.
Or maybe ...
# "Objection! Calls for speculation!"
/jordan