Senate and House (HB1047) bills on this one, SB 1446: Defense of Life, Home, and Property.
Provides that defensive display of weapon or firearm, including discharge of firearm for purpose of warning shot, does not constitute use of deadly force; provides immunity from prosecution for persons acting in defense of life, home, & property from violent attack or threat of violent attack through certain displays of or uses of force.
On initial reading, I like this bill. It will provide Florida Gun Owners with one more tool to de-escalate a possible bad situation and I am all for that. If seeing the business end of a gun helps Johnny Lawbreaker take pause and decide it is time for him to turn around, go home and watch the DVRed episodes of Downtown Abbey, I am all for that.
I am not a lawyer, not play one in the interwebs but I think that it would even help in a case of defensive shooting if a warning display of a firearm or shooting a warning shot were prior to the action as it would knock down any possible claim by a D.A. that one was looking for trouble or did not seek to end the situation by less than lethal means. IMHO it is hard to make a case of murder if the attacker has been warned in advance that he is about to be the recipient of deadly force and still chose to continue his actions. Perhaps Robert The K. may shed some more info and interpretation on this law and its possible pitfalls for us.
I expect that DAs all over Florida will have kittens and hate this law.
The one time I used my firearm for defense, no shots were fired. The goblin took one look at my nickle plated 38 and decided he needed to be somewhere else. No cops were called and nothing was ever said. afterwords, when the goblin saw me in town, he was respectful and gave me a wide berth.
I do not believe in warning shots. I can see however where this law could be a help to someone who wants to de-escalate the situation without actually applying deadly force. I agree that prosecutors are going to have fits over this. Kind of like that idiot attorney persecuting Zimmerman.
Provides that defensive display of weapon or firearm, including discharge of firearm for purpose of warning shot, does not constitute use of deadly force; [b]provides immunity from prosecution for persons acting in defense of life, home, & property from violent attack or threat of violent attack through certain displays[/b] of or uses of force.
What constitutes a defensive display? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aposematic
This should open another line of argument against the unconstitutional ‘open carry’ prohibition.
baby steps… baby steps and specially in this overheated political climate.
I’m not claiming this would be a ‘golden bullet’…merely (as I stated) another line of argumnt… a chink in the armor as it were for it *is* arguable that such things as colorful skin on a frog, or a flared hood on a cobra would qualify as a ‘warning’ style od ‘defensive display’. Something that says, in essence “I’m not who you want to be messing with”.
Well the “warning” shot should be fired into the ground perhaps and not in the air
Arizona has a defensive display law. It works well. It was implemented because aggressors, who were stopped in an attack, were then calling police and claiming that the victim who stopped them was the attacker. This actually went to trial in one case, and charges were only dropped after a third party witness was revealed to the defense. The witness information had been withheld from the defense right up to within minutes of the start of the trial.
Liked this, up until reading “warning shot”. Didn’t we all learn that warning shots are a “bad thing”.
My take this comes from 2 cases where people were sent to prison for 20 years for giving warning shots and defusing a potentially dangerous situation. One was a mother who kept her abusive husband at bay and the other an older gentleman keeping a bunch of younger fellas from attacking a woman.
I rather take a chance with a shot to the ground if I can make a situation de-escalate than actually having to wound or kill an individual even if it is legal to do so.