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| A Florida law allows people to defend themselves with violence in many situations. |
updated 9:22 PM EDT, Tue March 20, 2012
(CNN) -- In the months after the Florida Legislature
passed a law in 2005 allowing residents to use deadly force to protect
themselves no matter where they were, gun-control advocates plastered
the state with fliers bearing warnings to tourists.
Be careful, the fliers said. Florida had become a "shoot first" state.
The issue has remained in
the news, on and off, ever since, but perhaps never so much as now in
the aftermath of the shooting death of an unarmed teen in Sanford,
Florida.
A neighborhood watch
volunteer, George Zimmerman, has claimed self-defense in the February 26
shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was killed while walking
back to the house of his father's fiancee after a trip to a convenience
store.
Florida's "stand your ground" law appears to be central to the case.
The law allows people to
use deadly force away from their homes -- where such force has long been
allowed -- if they have reasonable fear an assailant could seriously
harm them or someone else.
It also eliminates a
longstanding "duty to retreat" in the face of imminent harm, asserting
that would-be crime victims have the right to "stand their ground" and
"meet force with force" when attacked as long as they are in a place
they have a right to be, are not engaged in unlawful activity and
believe that their life and safety was in danger.
It won with the strong
endorsement of the National Rifle Association, or NRA, which at the time
said it put the law "on the side of law-abiding citizens."
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Just keep it civil.