Florida: Where its good to be a gun-toting deadbeat.

Florida has long been known for its crazy, hillbilly laws....FL is famous for its no-limit homestead exemption to debt collection, which basically means that deadbeat dads and OJ-types can come to Florida and sink their entire fortune into a mansion on the Intercostal and still remain judgment-proof.

But, the FL Legislature outdid even themselves last week when they passed an egregiously expansive self-defense law that

1) presumes reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm or death in situations where one is being attacked (no more pesky issues of fact for the jury, like if a 400 lb. football player can be reasonably afraid of an unarmed starving carjacker)

2) expands Florida's already asinine "castle doctrine" (no duty to retreat) to all public spaces... "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Read some critical perspectives: here and here. I like the comment "this legalizes dueling."

Some big douche at the American Enterprise Institute attempts to explain that there still is a reasonableness inquiry under the new law by noting: "Shooting someone in the back who was running away would not be viewed as a reasonable response." GREAT.