RI Is a Stand Your Ground State.
With all of the uproar that is happening from the Zimmerman case, I want you all to fully understand what this law intends before you argue against it.
The actual law reads like this...
In the event that any person shall die or shall sustain a personal injury in any way or for any cause while in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6, it shall be rebuttably presumed as a matter of law in any civil or criminal proceeding that the owner, tenant, or occupier of the place where the offense was committed acted by reasonable means in self-defense and in the reasonable belief that the person engaged in the criminal offense was about to inflict great bodily harm or death upon that person or any other individual lawfully in the place where the criminal offense was committed. There shall be no duty on the part of an owner, tenant, or occupier to retreat from any person engaged in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6.
Now here is what I want you to think about before anyone tries to say this is a bad law.
If you were at home and a criminal broke into your home and they had a knife, baseball bat, pipe, broken bottle, a gun or other object including their fists to cause you severe bodily harm, would you try to run out the back door and leave your wife or your children alone in another room or in their rooms sleeping and take the chance of this monster killing or raping them while you ran out, tried to find a phone to call the police, wait for them to arrive and then cry at their funerals or would you use deadly force to stop them? THAT is the stand your ground law.
President Obama himself, no matter what he is saying now, was the sponsor of a bill in Chicago to STRENGTHEN the stand your ground law in his state. It is a law that was passed in Rhode Island by Democratic majority.
It is a law that protects YOU for protecting your family. It is a law that in my opinion SHOULD be in every state.
With all of the uproar that is happening from the Zimmerman case, I want you all to fully understand what this law intends before you argue against it.
The actual law reads like this...
In the event that any person shall die or shall sustain a personal injury in any way or for any cause while in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6, it shall be rebuttably presumed as a matter of law in any civil or criminal proceeding that the owner, tenant, or occupier of the place where the offense was committed acted by reasonable means in self-defense and in the reasonable belief that the person engaged in the criminal offense was about to inflict great bodily harm or death upon that person or any other individual lawfully in the place where the criminal offense was committed. There shall be no duty on the part of an owner, tenant, or occupier to retreat from any person engaged in the commission of any criminal offense enumerated in §§ 11-8-2 – 11-8-6.
Now here is what I want you to think about before anyone tries to say this is a bad law.
If you were at home and a criminal broke into your home and they had a knife, baseball bat, pipe, broken bottle, a gun or other object including their fists to cause you severe bodily harm, would you try to run out the back door and leave your wife or your children alone in another room or in their rooms sleeping and take the chance of this monster killing or raping them while you ran out, tried to find a phone to call the police, wait for them to arrive and then cry at their funerals or would you use deadly force to stop them? THAT is the stand your ground law.
President Obama himself, no matter what he is saying now, was the sponsor of a bill in Chicago to STRENGTHEN the stand your ground law in his state. It is a law that was passed in Rhode Island by Democratic majority.
It is a law that protects YOU for protecting your family. It is a law that in my opinion SHOULD be in every state.
Now I agree that the circumstances were very different in the Zimmerman case and I would never want to see anyone follow a person which may end in antagonizing them to a conflict that would require an act of self-defense as I believe may have happened in that case, but you cannot use that circumstance to try to repeal a law that protects someone for protecting themselves, their families or co-workers from sever bodily harm or death.
Again, we have to stop and think before we react when a tragedy happens or we end up doing more harm to ourselves than righting a wrong.
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