TRUE SOUTH
GUNS UP!
BY KEN WARD

A man’s home is his castle. So, according to the Castle Doctrine, a man (or woman) is justified in using force to repel an intruder. That time-honored concept got sharper teeth in Florida recently, when the Legislature passed, and Gov. Jeb Bush signed, a law that allows Floridians to meet “force with force” — inside or outside the home.

By removing the “duty to retreat” clause from the previous state statutes, and by extending the Castle Doctrine to the streets and even to cars, Florida became the first state to empower residents to stand up to the thugs who would invade their property and do them harm.

Liberals are up in arms, of course. 

“I am in absolute shock,” Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, harrumphed to the Washington Post. “If I had known about it, I would have been down there.”

Brady & Co. should watch their step. Florida, a state of 17 million people, issued more than 1 million new gun permits in the past 18 years, and is a proven trendsetter in self-defense legislation. In the mid-1980s, the Sunshine State launched “conceal carry” or “right-to-carry” laws that broaden citizens’ rights to arm themselves.

Despite predictions that conceal-carry laws would trigger Wild-West shootouts, 37 other states have adopted or strengthened their own right-to-carry laws. Meantime, violent crime in Florida has been cut in half.

But, thanks to lenient judges and incompetent policing of parolees, violent predators still roam the streets. The recent spate of kidnapping, raping and killing of young Florida girls shows just how incapable law enforcement is in safeguarding law-abiding citizens.

So it’s little wonder that a dozen Democratic lawmakers co-sponsored the new Castle Doctrine legislation. The measure, SB 436, passed the Senate 39-0 and cleared the House 94-20. 

Taking effect Oct. 1, it establishes the presumption that a criminal who forcibly enters or intrudes into your home or occupied vehicle is there to cause death or great bodily harm. It also removes the “duty to retreat” if you are in any place you have a right to be — whether that’s in your home, in your car or on the street. Furthermore, it provides that persons using force authorized by law shall not be prosecuted for using such force.

“Existing law was on the side of the criminal. The new law is on the side of the law-abiding victim,” says Marion Hammer, executive director of the United Sportsmen of Florida and a former president of the National Rifle Association.

“To suggest that you can’t defend yourself against a rapist who’s trying to drag you into an alley or against a carjacker who’s trying to drag you out of your car is nonsense. The ability to protect yourself, your children or your spouse is important, no matter where you are.”

The anti-gun crowd vows to put up a fight of its own, of course. Anthony Sebok, a Brooklyn Law professor, calls Florida’s law “a legal monstrosity” and concocts several scenarios that, he believes, will undercut its legitimacy.

“Suppose a teacher finds a student who has broken into his SUV to deface its interior. Though the intent was clearly vandalism, and the boy had no record of violence, the irate teacher guns down the student. According to Florida law, this would appear legal,” Sebok theorizes.

Maybe. Maybe not, given that sketchy account. But you can bet the mortgage that the American Civil Liberties Union et al will line up on the side of criminals (i.e., the “victims”), and counting how many felons can dance on the head of a pin isn’t likely to win many converts in the jury box.

Florida’s easy passage of the Castle bill, along with the NRA’s political clout and commitment to self-defense, suggests that more states will follow — just as the conceal-carry legislation swept across the country almost 20 years ago.

“There’s a big tailwind moving from state legislature to state legislature in the South, the Midwest, everything they call ‘flyover land,’” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told the Post. “If John Kerry held a shotgun in that state, we can pass this law in that state.” LW