The 4th District Court of Appeals ruling said, “The defense argued the Stand Your Ground law, applied and that T.P. (the middle school student) was lawfully entitled to defend himself, because, according to the bus driver, A.F. (the female student) had used force against T.P. when she grabbed him by his jacket, punched him, and pulled him down into his seat.”…….
With so much controversy over the Florida law and some protesters calling for the law to be repealed, Della Fera says what happened on the school bus and the court’s response to it indicates that “Stand Your Ground” is pretty much everywhere even when no weapons are involved.
“I think it shows us that Stand Your Ground does have broad application throughout many, many instances of everyday life,” he said
Sometimes it is hard to convey the concept of self-defense as in the fact that defending yourself does not immediately equate with the use of deadly force. Since details are so sketchy, I won’t comment on this particular case…and no, I don’t care that “But he hit a girl!” I am all for equal rights. Acting stupid is not the sole property of the ‘”Y” chromosome.
Hat Tip to Gun Save Lives
Like to know more about the case itself, but if what is written there is what happened –that some girl grabbed a kid’s jacket, punched him, and shoved him into his seat– then he should be considered well within his rights to respond in-kind.
Down with female tyranny.
Gender doesn’t come into it. If she assaulted him, he is right to defend himself.
A woman who throws a punch shows she considers herself capable of playing on that field. The results are well-deserved.
I had to argue this for three years as a member of the School Board. We had a policy that was being interpreted by several school administrators as prohibiting ANY self defense. I repeatedly pointed out that unless we were going to assign each and every student an individual bodyguard and assume full liability for their injuries, we couldn’t prohibit self-defense, especially in a state which has Stand Your Ground as long standing case law (over a century since the state Supreme Court held it so). I even countered one particularly adamant administrator’s mantra of, “It takes two to fight!” with, “True — but it only takes one to commit unprovoked assault upon a helpless victim. Sometimes the only way out is THROUGH. BTDT.”
The third year, that administrators, who happened to also be on the Student Code of Conduct committee slipped in a blatant ban on self defense in ANY circumstances, AFTER a few members of the School Board made it clear that we opposed such language. A week or two before the new school year was to start, and the booklets needed to be produced for the students.
At that point, the ENTIRE School Board slapped it down, and stripped out that language days before the booklet was to be printed and distributed. We’ve also exonerated students brought before teh School Board for serious disciplinary action under the “It takes two to fight” zero-tolerance standard.
Oh, that sneaky anti-human rights administrator? No longer administering a school. . .
Agree with all of the above. Most schools also have a “no bullying” policy. The two should go hand-in-hand. You bully someone, and they fight back, the bully gets punished and the kid that stood up for themselves should get a pizza party or something.
This would fix so many problems in society today and over the next twenty years.
Why are the police involved with a School Yard fight? If I’m reading this correctly, all involved are middle school students and on school property. Just let the Principle deal with it and SYG would be irrelevant. The shocking part, and the root of the problem, is they actually called the Po-Po and pressed charges over a middle school scuffle, not that the kid invoked SYG. If you make the kid play grown-up games then he’s entitled to grown-up options.