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Shoot first, ask Britons later
Europeans have long been fascinated by the American gun culture. Floridians, it seems, can shoot whomever they please.
“For the last year and a half, Floridians have been allowed by law to shoot anyone they want,” according to Isaac-Davy Aronson, a columnist writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The “stand your ground” law passed the Florida legislature by a wide margin. Since it went into effect in 2005, similar laws have been passed in at least 14 other states. The law gives people the right of “self-defense without the duty to retreat” meaning people can use deadly force to prevent death or serious injury.
Aronson argues that shoot-first laws are a wholesale rejection of law itself, a step towards replacing a nation of laws with a nation of value judgments — a nation in which whomever is currently considered “good” gets a free pass.
He cites a statement from Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, which is behind the Florida measure: “Good people make good decisions and that’s why they’re good people. If you’re going to empower someone, empower the crime victim.”
But Aronson said he knows a lot of incredibly good people who make bad decisions on a daily basis and a lot of good people he wouldn’t trust with a gun. But he said it’s clear the Florida law isn’t about gun rights but about a moral philosophy of good and evil.
“If a good person shoots someone, it’s O.K. If a bad person shoots someone, it’s not,” he said. “You might call that a double standard.”
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