Stand Your Ground!!! PoW!

R1 Every man has a divine right to life and should not be restrained...Humans have a right to life. I disagree that in all circumstances people "should not be restrained" from defending that right. As a person, each of us believes our survival is the most important, but as a society we must weigh whether the deceased also had a right to survival. If we provide sweeping justification for people to act against forces they deem threatening to their survival with force of their own, our streets become battlegrounds. Enumerating a right to retaliation via legal decree will have more drastic results than it will beneficial because it will give people the authority to defend their survival based on their own subjective measurement of danger.R2 Provides a legal foundation for victims to stand onWhat is probably the root of this whole issue is the fact that the word victim is a swinging door. Proponents of these laws see the shooter as the victim that defended himself while opponents see the man on the ground as a silenced victim of assault. We must take action in cases like these to ensure that both the individuals rights are and have been maintained. Pro is wrong in saying SYG is a foundation for victims since it holds the account given by the survivor as solid evidence for his own actions. The moral: If you can kill a man in a dark alley with no witnesses, you're innocent. This is not acceptable in the 21st century.R3 Any man would free himself of danger if possibleSince R3, SYG is just protection for those people who cannot retreat to safety. This unfounded generality serves as a way to cast aside a huge portion of unlawful murders in order to simplify the argument. A Miami man saw someone stealing a radio from his car and pursued him. The thief swung a bag containing radios at the man, who blocked it and proceeded to stab the thief to death[1]. This was all captured on video, but a Florida judge found the man innocent of murder under the current Florida SYG law since the bag of radios could have killed the man. Did this man free himself from danger? Was it possible to do so? Could he have called the police? All obviously "yes". Yes he could have called the police and won in a court of law. Did he do so? No, he left the man to die on the street. Then he went home, took a nap, hid the knife and proceeded to sell 2 of the stolen radios[2]. He was STILL found innocent of murder under the current SYG law. If this doesn't cheapen human life, I don't know what does. Of course, this isn't indicative of all the cases before the courts, but they doesn't have to be. The fact that these laws are so broadly written and difficult to enforce ensures that they will used to justify heinous acts of murder.R4 it will always be up to the fact finders (jury) to determine if such justification is legitimateI wish this were the case, but it is often not. Many laws permit administrative determination of guilt. That is a single judge, sometimes an officer, is allowed to determine whether or not the murder was legally justified under the SYG provision. If the shooter claims self defense and there are no witnesses or evidence to the contrary, then the officers can allow the shooter to leave since they have no legal grounds to detain him. This happened in the Zimmerman case that will now be decided by a judge in the absence of a jury[3]. Whenever someone is murdered, the one who admitted to pulling the trigger should be held and questioned thoroughly before any determination can be made and should be tried before an unbiased jury. Otherwise it would cheapen the life of the deceased and allow evidence to age and become unusable. In the Z case, Travon's body was drug tested while Zimmerman was allowed to sleep in his bed, reports that contradicted Zimmerman's were not documented and the shooter's background was not investigated prior to that determination[4]. This is not an isolated case.C1 SYG laws promote vigilantismVigilantism: One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands[5]http://s7.postimage.org...We give to certain individuals the power to use their judgment to enforce the law. These people are held accountable for their treatment of criminal activity. Police officers are the only people charged with the ability to decide if force is necessary to neutralize a situation. Circumstances exist where citizens are forgiven violent acts against aggressors in light of evidence, but a sweeping law that allows civilians to use lethal force whenever one feels threatened will open the door to more justifiable murder. In fact, it has. In the 5 years that SYG has been law in Florida alone, cases of justifiable murder have tripled[6]. SYG allows an alternative to calling the police in a time of danger that should only be forgiven on individual basis and not provided as an enumerated protection. PO's are trained in firearm use, law and defusing confrontations. They're checked for mental and psychological health where the average citizen is not and should not be provided the same rights. "We don't call 911" is not only stupid, it's damaging, lawless, subjectively justifiable and now legal in many states.C2 Turns the public sphere into a battlegroundAnywhere in any public place, your actions might lead others to feel threatened and they may legally kill you. A study done by the University of Notre Dame found that those carrying guns are more likely to perceive others of having guns[7]. It's logical to assume that if you believe others have guns, you are more likely to feel threatened. People that feel threatened with guns are the meat and potatoes of this argument. In all but one of the cases in which this law was used as justification in Florida, the victim was unarmed. The sheer breadth and appeal to subjective feeling of this law makes it unrealistic and harmful to society. The law has since provided immunity to members of gang-shoot outs, victims of verbal disputes over property, defendants that have chased down and murdered aggressors, a teen who stabbed his bully to death etc[8]. Murderers should be behind bars, not acquitted on interpretive technicalities.C3 Cheapens human lifeLike the Z case, when admitted killers are not initially seen as potential murderers, but law abiding defenders, it does a disservice to the US in two ways. First, the deceased is not allowed a fair trial because his killer was not charged of a crime. It is safe to say that the deceased did not agree with the killer's assessment of the situation. Murder is illegal in the US. If the admitted killer is not charged as a murderer despite having killed the other, this is a wrong to the deceased because the initial conclusion of the police taint any further judicial action. If the evidence or lack of it supports his claim of defense, then so be it, but the truth of the matter is he killed a man and for the dead man's sake, should initially be seen as the aggressor in situations of admitted or reasonable assumption. The second is simply that the man that killed another is walking the streets, sometimes right after the killing. If the investigation is ongoing and evidence is still being compiled and analyzed, releasing a man because he states that his actions were in self defense causes great harm to the lives of those in the community. Cases involving the loss of a life should be handled with care.C4 SYG is survivor-biasedSYG is like evolution. It benefits those who survive an encounter. If A and B get into a fight and A kills B, then A can claim SYG defense and be granted immunity if successful. If B kills A it's opposite. If one side cannot provide their side, the side that can will use every legal avenue available to plead their innocence. To do otherwise would be stupid. Since we are getting only one side of the argument, we should not take the killer's statement as default and just let the evidence speak for itself. Sources: http://pastebin.com...