Thanks to Stand Your Ground law Florida man who shot and killed a one time friend who was unarmed and walking away will not be charged.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

In early July, 20-year-old Colt Thriemer shot dead a one-time friend in a Wal-Mart parking lot, saying he feared for his life. Witnesses gathered for a truck meet that night say victim Thomas James Brown, 21, was walking away toward his car when Thriemer fired ten shots. Some say Brown had threatened to kill Thriemer over the course of several weeks. The story as told by prosecutors in a detailed legal memo suggests drug transactions, addiction, and monetary debts all played a role in the scenario leading up to Brown’s death. 

But these facts will never play out in a trial, because prosecutors have decided not to charge Thriemer citing Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. 

“The Stand Your Ground statute makes no exception from the immunity because Brown may have been walking away from Thriemer at the time the deadly force was used,” the memo from the State Attorney’s office states. “The Stand Your Ground law does not require Thriemer to wait until Brown in fact retrieved a gun before he fired. Under the current state of the law and the facts of this case, Thriemer was legally allowed to use deadly force based on a reasonable belief that his life was in danger and that he was about to become the victim of an armed robbery.”

I cannot get over how this law simply allows you to murder somebody simply because you "thought" they might come after you at some point. 

Isn't this the same kind of thinking that got us into the Iraq War?

Look this guy who was shot, Thomas James Brown, sounds like a real POS. And there is a part of me who wants to say that he got what he deserved.

Except that he didn't deserve it.  At least not yet.

IF he were reaching for a gun in his pocket, then maybe.

IF he were actively beating on the defendant with a lead pipe, then maybe.

But he was walking away.

Seriously do you have any idea how many dead bodies I would have sent to the morgue if I killed every person who threatened to kill me or beat my ass? It would be dozens.

People say things in the heat of anger, but unless they are actively attempted to take your life you have NO right to end theirs.

"Only use as much force as absolutely necessary." I learned that as a boy of ten, yet these so-called adults cannot seem to figure it out.