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This is entirely anecdotal but I wanted to use a real life example of where I see how things can easily go badly wrong with the stand your ground law. And when I say wrong I mean miscarriages of justice.
So first off I live in the UK where there is no strand your ground law. About 20 years ago I lived in new build flat, and the building regulations at the time were really bad. We had plasterboard walls separating next door flats. I could hear normal volume conversations through the walls crystal clear. And these weren't cheap flats.
One Sunday morning at 7am, our neighbours, as they would often do, would vacuum clean the adjourning room to our bedroom, which I assume was their lounge (bad layout). Being mid 20's we liked to lie in on Sunday mornings. So it was quite distressing to us to be regularly woken up at 7 in the morning after less than 4 hours of sleep.
My long-term girlfriend at the time lost it and shouted 'Will you STFU?!' The male neighbour yelled back through the wall, almost instantly 'Go fuck yourself!'. I was annoyed at my gf for losing her temper and escalating things but I couldn't let it go. So I stormed around there. I knocked on the door and got ignored and then I banged really hard on the door to get their attention.
The guy's reaction was to fling open the door and launch himself at me. He was mid to late 30's and was a similar height at 5'11" but had a good 40lbs on me. I'd been boxing for a couple of years and had also done some MMA. My reaction was to punch him in the face to stop his momentum. This caused him to dip his head and body lock me, charging me backward through a door to the communal stair well.
I locked him up in a guillotine and prevented him from sending me backwards done a long flight of stairs. Whilst I had him in the guillotine my gf uppercutted him full in the face busting his nose wide open. I had to yell at her to stop as I had him under control. A few seconds later whilst he was nearing unconsciousness I asked him if he'd had enough. He reluctantly submitted.
A few hours later the police arrived to arrest me. I spent the night in the cells. And I ended up going to court for actual bodily harm. The case eventually got dropped luckily because another neighbour had heard the whole incident and backed up my version of events that he was the aggressor, I was just defending myself and that I hadn't broken his nose. He also claimed that I'd broken the lock on his door by forcing entry whilst trying to kick it down, but I know that was a total lie, so he must have deliberately broken his own lock to fit me up. The police never even looked at that as an issue. They just took his word as verbatim.
The point is, if that was a stand your ground state, he could have probably got away with faking that I'd forced entry and shot me dead. How can that be ok? You just remonstrate with your neighbour about some noise, so my big mistake was banging on his door, and they can easily make out you were threatening them, fake forced entry and shoot you dead.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing responses as to how this situation could be avoided or mitigated. Maybe if I had known my neighbour had a gun I would have never dared to go around to confront him, but doesn't that allow people with guns to bully those that don't? He shouts 'Go fuck yourself!' and I do my best to keep my irate GF quiet?
So first off I live in the UK where there is no strand your ground law. About 20 years ago I lived in new build flat, and the building regulations at the time were really bad. We had plasterboard walls separating next door flats. I could hear normal volume conversations through the walls crystal clear. And these weren't cheap flats.
One Sunday morning at 7am, our neighbours, as they would often do, would vacuum clean the adjourning room to our bedroom, which I assume was their lounge (bad layout). Being mid 20's we liked to lie in on Sunday mornings. So it was quite distressing to us to be regularly woken up at 7 in the morning after less than 4 hours of sleep.
My long-term girlfriend at the time lost it and shouted 'Will you STFU?!' The male neighbour yelled back through the wall, almost instantly 'Go fuck yourself!'. I was annoyed at my gf for losing her temper and escalating things but I couldn't let it go. So I stormed around there. I knocked on the door and got ignored and then I banged really hard on the door to get their attention.
The guy's reaction was to fling open the door and launch himself at me. He was mid to late 30's and was a similar height at 5'11" but had a good 40lbs on me. I'd been boxing for a couple of years and had also done some MMA. My reaction was to punch him in the face to stop his momentum. This caused him to dip his head and body lock me, charging me backward through a door to the communal stair well.
I locked him up in a guillotine and prevented him from sending me backwards done a long flight of stairs. Whilst I had him in the guillotine my gf uppercutted him full in the face busting his nose wide open. I had to yell at her to stop as I had him under control. A few seconds later whilst he was nearing unconsciousness I asked him if he'd had enough. He reluctantly submitted.
A few hours later the police arrived to arrest me. I spent the night in the cells. And I ended up going to court for actual bodily harm. The case eventually got dropped luckily because another neighbour had heard the whole incident and backed up my version of events that he was the aggressor, I was just defending myself and that I hadn't broken his nose. He also claimed that I'd broken the lock on his door by forcing entry whilst trying to kick it down, but I know that was a total lie, so he must have deliberately broken his own lock to fit me up. The police never even looked at that as an issue. They just took his word as verbatim.
The point is, if that was a stand your ground state, he could have probably got away with faking that I'd forced entry and shot me dead. How can that be ok? You just remonstrate with your neighbour about some noise, so my big mistake was banging on his door, and they can easily make out you were threatening them, fake forced entry and shoot you dead.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing responses as to how this situation could be avoided or mitigated. Maybe if I had known my neighbour had a gun I would have never dared to go around to confront him, but doesn't that allow people with guns to bully those that don't? He shouts 'Go fuck yourself!' and I do my best to keep my irate GF quiet?
