I am in favor of “stand your ground”. I think those that attack it do not understand the laws.
Under the common law, if you are attacked and somebody is trying to kill you, you are not allowed to fight back with “deadly force” unless you are unable to run away. This puts victims in a bad situation, since they must try to run away, which may put them in an even more vulnerable situation. Moreover, if they do fight back, they might be prosecuted on the theory that they could have run away.
The stand your ground law changes that, and says that you are not required to run away. Rather, you are allowed to fight back.
But, the stand your ground law only applies in very limited scenarios. If somebody is going to rob you, you are not allowed to kill them. If somebody is going to beat you up, you are not allowed to kill them. If somebody is going to beat up your kids, you are not allowed to kill them.
Moreover, it does not go by what YOU think is going to happen, but by what a reasonable bystander would think. So, if you think he is going to kill you, but the jury thinks that was unreasonable, then you are guilty.
I’m in favor of that law.
Mayor Bloomberg is a rich idiot, and out of touch with the world. Let’s imagine for a moment that the facts of this case are the most positive for Zimmerman. (I’m making this up). That is let’s imagine that he stopped following when the police told him to, and was going back to his car, when Martin snuck behind him, punched him to the ground, straddled him and bashed his head into the ground intending to kill him. And that’s when he shot him. So if Zimmerman didn’t have a gun, he’d have been murdered. In that scenario, are you happy he had a gun? I am.