Florida GOP's New Stand Your Ground Expansion: Trayvon's Killer Would Get Paid $200,000

Crossposted under SemDem on DailyKos

As always, I have to begin my posts by pointing out that this is NOT a snark. In the Gunshine state, the NRA doesn't just get laws passed, they write the laws. At a time when the nation despairs over weekly gun massacres, our f*&*ing legislature is currently on track to force our colleges to allow assault-rifle toting gun nuts to roam the campus. (Naturally, guns will still be banned in the Capitol.) But while our state suffers from all the terror that our unchecked NRA has unleashed, including the nation's first so-called "stand Your Ground" law, it's about to get a whole lot worse.

House bill 169 grotesquely flips the burden of proof to anyone arrested for a gun-related crime. In other words, if you knife somebody in the gut, the burden of proof will still be on you as to why you did that. But if you SHOOT somebody in the gut, the burden of proof will be on the guy who got shot to prove IT WAS NOT SELF-DEFENSE!!!

It's like the NRA is actively trying to get more violent crime in our bloody state. Actually, it is exactly what they are doing.

OH, and one more thing.

If you get shot in the gut and you (or more likely, your surviving relatives) should fail to prove that the guy did not act in self-defense, the taxpayers of Florida would have to pay the shooter up to $200,000 for any costs and expenses related to the trial.

From the same article:

That payment part is unprecedented.

"This is a dangerous piece of legislation," said Phil Archer, the gun-toting Republican state attorney for Seminole and Brevard counties. "I don't know how else to say it."

Archer said the law would essentially force prosecutors to try every case twice — once to validate self-defense claims and then again for the actual trial — a costly hurdle for prosecutors "even if it is obviously not a viable self-defense claim. Every defendant in every case is going to ask for it."

The $200,0000 payments would also probably force offices to cut prosecutors, he said, explaining: "There's nothing else to cut."

Our homicide rate increased dramatically under Stand Your Ground... this will make it skyrocket.

Oh, and why did they pick $200,000 as a number, you might ask? It was the amount George Zimmerman wanted the state to reimburse him for all of his "expert witnesses, travel expenses, and transcripts". Seriously.

It's bad enough that he murdered Trayvon in cold blood. NRA legislators supporting this bill in Tallahassee apparently think his parents should also have paid him as well.

With all of the benefits of shooting people, you'd be crazy NOT to have your planned gun rampage here in Florida. (Well, I'd guess you'd be crazy either way.)

I've seen a lot of stupid in this state, but I've never before seen a bill that actively encourages gun massacres. I guess since the GOP's base is now down to just angry, white men, they feel they need to appeal to their fastest growing constituency: the paranoid and violent lone gunmen.