In October, Florida expanded a law that a person have the right to use deadly force against intruders entering their home or vehicle by intruding unlawfully and forcefully. The addition to this is law is that if a person is attacked in public, that person no longer has to retreat. They now have a right to stand on their own. Here are some excerpts of the article:

In the past year, 15 states have enacted laws that expand the right of self-defense, allowing crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to prosecution for murder.

Supporters call them “stand your ground” laws. Opponents call them “shoot first” laws.

Thanks to this sort of law, a prostitute in Port Richey, Fla., who killed her 72-year-old client with his own gun, rather than flee when he threatened to kill her, was not charged last month. Similarly, the police in Clearwater, Fla., did not arrest a man who shot a neighbor in early June after a shouting match over putting out garbage, though authorities say they are still reviewing the evidence.

The Florida law, which served as a model for other states, gives people the right to use deadly force against intruders entering their homes. They no longer need to prove that they feared for their safety, only that the person they killed intruded unlawfully and forcefully. The law also extends this principle to vehicles.

In addition, the law does away with an earlier requirement that a person attacked in a public place must retreat if possible. Now, that person, in the law’s words, “has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.”

The law also forbids the arrest, detention or prosecution of the people covered by the law, and it prohibits civil suits against them.

The central innovation in the Florida law, said Anthony Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, is not its elimination of the duty to retreat, which has been eroding nationally through judicial decisions, but in expanding the right to shoot intruders who pose no threat to the occupant’s safety.

Jason Rosenbloom, the man shot by his neighbor in Clearwater, said his case illustrated the flaws in the Florida law. “Had it been a year and a half ago, he could have been arrested for attempted murder,” Rosenbloom said of his neighbor, Kenneth Allen.

“I was in T-shirt and shorts,” Rosenbloom said, recalling the day he knocked on Allen’s door. Allen, a retired Virginia police officer, had lodged a complaint with the local authorities, taking Rosenbloom to task for putting out eight bags of garbage, though local ordinances allow only six.

California shares this law that you can shoot someone without questions if that person unlawfully and forcefully break into your home, with an exception of a relative or a person who lives in that household. But California does not extend this law to a vehicle. I think California should consider that as an expansion. This will reduce car jacking significantly.

I believe the example of Jason and his neighbor is not within the domains of this law. Jason’s neighbor should have been arrested. Florida’s expansion of this law says to meet force with force. Shooting someone over shouting is NOT meeting force with force.