Remedial Bonehead Legal Education

As we grind on through the ongoing morass of the Martin case in Florida, it occurs to me that there’s an article I should have written a month ago, when the “Stand Your Ground” bill was wending its way toward Governor “I’ve Got Two .357 Magnums” Dayton’s dim-witted veto.

It turns out a lot of liberals – in Minnesota and nationwide – are really unclear on basic logic, to say nothing of how the law works.

So as mu public service to the left, to try to educate them to a point where they might be able to participate literately in discussing the issue, I’m here out of pure unvarnished compassion to help them out.

Well, Freaking Duh! – I’ve brought this one up before – but as long as liberals say it, I’m going to have to repeat it. Lefties like to refer to “Stand Your Ground” bills as “Shoot First” bills. And I have to ask – have any of you hamsters ever thought about what happens in a legitimate self-defense situation when you shoot second?

No, I guess not. I’ll give you a subtle hint; you get kidnapped, raped, strangled, stabbed and shot.

“Shooting Second” is a really lousy idea.

(I know, I know – they’re trying to “frame” the term. And I’m just doing my best to have the frame blow up in their faces).

More Of That There Fancy Law Talk – When trying to explain what’s wrong with “Stand Your Ground” laws, liberals will get hushed, snd solemnly intone that “they mean people can shoot in self-defense if they feel they’re being threatened”. They usually follow up with one of those Jon Stewart smirks.

And I’m forced to slow waaaaay down – not so much “theatrically” as out of hope that exaggeraged emphasis will help me cut through the sludgy wall of intellectually-entitled smugness – and ask “what do you think people claim when it comes to “self-defense” in any state, regardless of whether it’s a “Stand Your Ground” state like Florida, or a place that actively persecutes the law-abiding gun owner, like the District of Columbia?”

“It is ALWAYS based on someone’s “Feeling” that they are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.. Always, always, always.”

“I mean, what do you think – that in Minnesota, there’s a Predator drone up aloft carrying out surveillance over dark alleys and trailer parks, so that there’s a photographic, objective trail of empmrrical third-party evidence as to which shootings are or are not self-defense?\  Flying up there with the unicorns that have all the money for your governlment spending plans?”

“No – in all 50 states and the D of C, self-defense is always, always, always, no exceptions about a party claiming to have felt in imminent danger of death or great harm. The difference is in how state law treats it; in Minnesota, the shooter has to prove the shooting was justified; in about half the states, the county attorney has to prove they weren’t”.

They usually run crying to their TV to see what Bill Maher tells them around this point.