"No Duty To Retreat"

I have not commented on the Sanford gated community shooting, because I don’t know the facts. I cannot read the mind of the shooter, as a whole lot of other people seemingly can, so I don’t know if the shooting was racially motivated or not. I do know that having these “neighborhood watch” programs using people on active patrols and carrying guns is on the face of it a hideously bad idea.

When I read that the Florida law under which this guy was operating said that when a person is not on their own property and is acting in self defense that they specifically have “no duty to retreat” in the face of a threat, I was appalled.

Mere civilization imposes a duty to retreat, for God’s sake, if that option is available. The only reason that a person would not avail himself of the present opportunity to avoid threat is if he actually enjoys confrontation and looks forward to an opportunity to inflict harm himself. That is blatantly uncivilized behavior, now codified into law. What kind of insane community passes such law?

Update: Did the shooter commit a crime? Two points should be made as to that question. First is that whenever there is a shooting, fatal of not, done by an officer of the law or not, there should be an official investigation as to the righteousness of the shooting, and there seems to have been no intention of doing that in this case. Second, we have some pretty damning, concrete evidence of wrongdoing in the call made by the shooter himself when the 911 operator asks, prior to the shooting, "Are you following him?" and he replies that he is, wherepon the operator says, "We don't need for you to do that," and tells him that the police are on their way.