Thursday, August 10, 2006

Back to the Old West

Perhaps a similar theme to my next cartoon...

15 states in the South and Midwest have enacted "shoot first" laws that expand the right of self-defense, allowing crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to prosecution for murder:
The central innovation in the Florida law, said Anthony J. Sebok, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, is not its elimination of the duty to retreat, which has been eroding nationally through judicial decisions, but in expanding the right to shoot intruders who pose no threat to the occupant’s safety.

“In effect,” Professor Sebok said, “the law allows citizens to kill other citizens in defense of property.”

Of course, I'd imagine that such laws will not benefit many of the folks who favor them, their chief obstacle most likely being the fact that they're too drunk or inbred to aim straight...

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