re: #308 palomino

The article claims that SYG couldn’t have had anything to do with the verdict because Dunn was found guilty on three counts of attempted murder.

No, you’re misunderstanding the article.

If the jury believed Dunn thought Davis had a gun, they might be stuck on his count alone. Whereas they would have little trouble finding Dunn guilty of attempted murder for indiscriminately shooting at three people who didn’t have guns.

The article addresses that….

Yet that is no way unique to Florida or stand your ground laws. The most common example is when someone is confronted with what turns out to be a toy gun, he or she still has the right to use deadly force in any state if he or she “reasonably” believed the weapon was real, even if turns out there was no actual threat.

And, since SYG is simply a specific form of self-defense, it’s hard to cleanly separate the two as the author does.

It’s a little complicated and there’s some room for nuance. As the article states, there is plenty of room to be critical of the law but unfortunately many of the claims aren’t accurate.