Stand Your Ground Laws

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To begin, what is the “Stand Your Ground Law”? Well many states such as: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia have stand your ground laws which state that individuals do not have to retreat before using force in a self- defense situation or many states have laws that are remarkably similar to stand your ground laws. Stand Your Ground laws started in 2005 when Florida was the first state that passed the stand your ground law which basically allowed individuals to stand their ground instead of fleeing or retreating if they believed that doing so would prevent significant bodily damage or death. The purpose of creating laws such as the Stand Your Ground Laws was to obliterate any confusion about when an individual can protect themselves and to eradicate certain trials where people who lawfully used self-defense even though they first had not attempted to retreat from the threat. However, in my opinion the Stand Your Ground law is a dangerous alternative compared to the safe concept known as duty to retreat. All the states in which I mentioned above either completely eliminated the duty to retreat concept by passing stand your ground laws or by passing laws that are similar to the stand your ground law; either way all the states above do not consider the duty to retreat concept as a major factor in their state laws. The duty to retreat is a self-defense concept which simply states that when an individual is posed with a confrontational situation they are supposed to try to retract from the situation (if possible) before becom...

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