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<\/a><\/p>\nSome of the dimmer bulbs on the Twin Cities’ Sorosphere’s intellectual Festivus pole were grunting and argling yesterday about\u00a0this piece here, from “Think” Progess, <\/em>by one Jon Soltz<\/a>, claiming that Florida’s (and by extension, Minnesota’s proposed and vetoed) “Stand Your Ground” laws “gives George Zimmerman more protection than soldiers overseas”. \u00a0 It’s written by one Jon Soltz, listed as founder and chairman of\u00a0VoteVets.org<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Soltz:<\/p>\n The Trayvon Martin case has gripped the nation, and forced the country to re-examine our gun laws. But the horrible affair has struck me in another way, because of my two tours in Iraq. One fact stands out in my mind: The \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d law in Florida, which may let George Zimmerman off the hook for the killing of Martin, gives more leeway to shooters than our own military gives to soldiers in war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That sounds serious. \u00a0And it is. \u00a0Seriously misleading, anyway.<\/p>\n We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n VoteVets.org has more than 105,000 members who take a wide array of views on gun control and the 2nd Amendment,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n …although the group itself is a left-leaning “veterans” group affiliated <\/a>with the whacko-left “Center for American Progress”, “Moveon.org”, and which is supported by the Soros-affiliated “Democracy Alliance”.<\/p>\n But this is less about the organization than about the spreading of chanting points in which Soltz is participating.<\/p>\n but the Trayvon Martin case is less about the right to bear arms than it is the \u201cuse of force.\u201d It\u2019s impossible to ignore the legal protection George Zimmerman enjoys in suburban Florida vs. the Rules of Engagement that outline when one of our troops can shoot while in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Soltz is half right…<\/p>\n …well, no. \u00a0He’s half on topic. \u00a0There is something <\/em>that’s impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n But comparing rules for self-defense among civilians out and about in a civil society is nothing <\/em>like the rules of engagement for the military in a combat zone.<\/p>\n The U.S. military issues\u00a0Rules of Engagement (ROE)<\/a>\u00a0for every conflict to guide servicemembers\u2019 ability to protect themselves from deadly threats…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n …which Soltz goes on to describe in great detail and, I’ll presume, accurately (although I’d love to have some of combat veterans who read this blog go over his version of the ROE just to make sure), he misses a key point. \u00a0And by “key”, I mean, “so vital that his entire point makes absolutely no sense if you get it wrong”.<\/p>\n Soltz:<\/p>\n A\u00a0key component of the ROE<\/a>\u00a0used during the height of violence in Iraq in 2007 was the requirement to use \u201cGraduated Force\u201d when time and circumstances permit. Section 3.G.(1) states that if an individual \u201ccommit[s] a hostile act or demonstrat[es] hostile intent\u201d \u2014 meaning he or she attacks U.S. or designated allied forces, nationals, or property, or threatens the imminent use of force against any of them \u2014 U.S. Force \u201cmay use force, up to and including deadly force, to eliminate the threat.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Right.<\/p>\n A soldier (or sailor, airman or Marine) in a combat has a lot <\/em>of firepower at hand; a selective-fire assault rifle (sometimes with a grenade launcher), a machine gun (anything from a squad automatic weapon to an M2 .50 caliber or a fully-automatic grenade launcher on top of their Hummer), or more; antitank rockets, grenades, and more. \u00a0They can be supported by tanks with cannon with cannon that can pick your nose from a mile away with a depleted-uranium dart that flies at a mile every second and a half and that can go through a foot of armor steel. \u00a0They’re a radio call away from calling in artillery – 40-to-100 pound shells in barrages of dozens of shells that can level a city block faster than a \u00a0bunch of drunk Detroit Pistons fans – or air support, in the form of Apaches with rockets and automatic cannon, A10s and F16s flying close support, \u00a0dropping 2000 GPS-guided bombs that can fly down your toilet more accurately than the Roto-Rooter guy, or even a B52 that can drop thirty or forty of them, if you really <\/em>need to dig out of a jam.<\/p>\n The rules of engagement are there to make sure that the 19 year old kid with the aweseome responsibility of being at the business end of all that firepower knows how to use it to advance, rather than degrade, <\/em>America’s interests in the area.<\/p>\n On the other hand, the law regarding civilian <\/em>self-defense is there to judge whether homicide is justified or not. \u00a0In every state, the questions are \u00a0“is the citizen’s fear of death, rape, maiming or other injury reasonable enough to justify using lethal force”, “was the citizen a reluctant participant”, “was the force they used reasonable” and in some states, “did the citizen make a reasonable effort to retreat”. \u00a0In some states, the citizens have to prove all of the above; in others – Florida – the state has to prove they didn’t.<\/p>\n We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n Soltz gives an example of how Rules of Engagement caused a problem for one soldier:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n